Credit

Oaktree’s flagship Opportunistic Credit platform, previously known as the Distressed Debt platform, was rebranded in 2021 to reflect the evolution of the associated strategies over the last three decades. Our Opportunistic Credit strategies have expanded their geographic footprints and range of targeted investments. Instead of focusing almost exclusively on single-name public credits, our strategies now also consider a wide variety of privately sourced investments.

What hasn’t changed is our investment approach: we seek to protect against loss by buying claims on assets at bargain prices, and we aim to achieve substantial gains by actively participating in restructurings to restore companies to financial viability. We strive to create value at every stage of the investment process.

Members of our team began working together prior to Oaktree as managers of high yield bonds, since the time of their emergence as an investment specialty. Our high yield bond strategies seek to achieve superior risk-adjusted returns by investing in performing bonds of creditworthy North American and European corporations. Globally, our team’s approach emphasizes fundamental credit analysis as the route to superior risk control.

Learn more about Oaktree's  UCITS (SICAV) Funds.

Our senior loan strategies focus on the senior secured debt of issuers in North America and Europe. We seek to achieve an attractive total return while preserving principal and avoiding defaults. The strategies benefit from our emphasis on fundamental, bottom-up credit analysis, and the deep experience and expertise of Oaktree’s U.S. and European senior loan teams.

Learn more about Oaktree's UCITS (SICAV) Funds.

Our private credit strategies focus on investment opportunities in private debt issued by companies that have little or no access to traditional sources of financing. The strategies seek to achieve attractive, risk-adjusted absolute returns by originating or participating in the syndication of performing debt issued by North American and European companies. Benefiting from Oaktree’s global sourcing power in both the credit and private equity fields, our investment teams pursue a fundamental, value-driven, opportunistic approach that leverages strong relationships with private equity sponsors, senior advisors and potential borrowers around the globe.

In 2022, we acquired a majority interest in 17Capital, a provider of growth capital and liquidity to high-quality private equity management companies, their funds and institutional investors to finance value creation or portfolio management initiatives through preferred equity and NAV loans. To learn more about 17Capital, please visit www.17capital.com.

Learn more about the Oaktree Strategic Credit Fund.

Our multi-asset credit platform provides clients with one-stop access to the entirety of Oaktree’s credit offerings. Our flagship Global Credit strategy seeks to earn attractive total return and current income while limiting volatility through diversification.  

We flexibly allocate portfolios based on our bottom-up assessment of relative value between regions, credit asset classes and issuers — as we believe macro-forecasting is not critical to investment success. In line with Oaktree’s core tenets, Global Credit seeks to control for risk while taking an opportunistic approach to investment. Our approach is highly collaborative, drawing on the insights of our Global Credit Investment Committee and over 250 research professionals around the globe. We offer both standard commingled and customized client solutions.

Learn more about Oaktree's UCITS (SICAV) Funds.

Learn more about the Oaktree Diversified Income Fund (ODIDX).

The inefficient, complex and dynamic emerging markets credit universe presents a unique opportunity for skilled investors to identify attractively priced investments in both creditworthy and distressed debt instruments. Having invested in these markets since their infancy, the members of our team employ a bottom-up, fundamental approach to credit analysis and leverage Oaktree’s extensive credit platform and external network of local advisors to seek attractive returns with less-than-commensurate risk.

The complex nature of convertible securities – part equity and part debt – can lead mainstream stock and bond investors to overlook these securities, creating an inefficient market and, thus, prices at which convertible securities can offer return without comparable risk. Our approach emphasizes identifying those securities that offer the greatest bargain — those likely to capture a high percentage of the appreciation of the stocks into which they are convertible while limiting exposure to declines.

Learn more about Oaktree's UCITS (SICAV) Funds.

Oaktree’s Structured Credit strategy seeks to outperform traditional debt alternatives by generating attractive risk-adjusted returns and strong current cashflow.  Drawing on years of experience in the senior loan, real estate debt, and private credit markets, the investment team targets a wide variety of instruments backed by contractual assets such as pools of loans, leases, mortgages, and other receivables.  The strategy focuses on both liquid investments (e.g., collateralized loan obligations, commercial mortgage-backed securities, and other asset-backed securities) and privately negotiated asset-based financings.  The strategy evaluates opportunities across the structured credit universe based on assessment of relative value and employs a bottom-up approach to construct diversified portfolios.  Securitizations offer a complexity premium, meaning investors with significant experience and expertise in this area have the potential to generate excess value.  Additionally, these instruments typically have strong investor-friendly features, including structural protections, robust covenants, and significant diversity in the underlying assets.