HSBC Asset Management has launched a private credit strategy allowing investors to invest in a range of trade finance assets, with access to the bank’s existing deal flow.
The strategy is aimed at institutional investors in Europe, Asia, Canada, Australia and the Middle East, and involves investing in short-term trade finance and working capital assets such as trade loans, receivables and payables finance, and other documentary trade transactions.
Called Trade and Working Capital Solutions, it is managed by HSBC Asset Management’s Capital Solutions unit and has been developed in collaboration with the bank’s Global Trade Solutions business.
The bank says it is expected to provide stable returns to investors against a backdrop of an evolving trade landscape, as well as efforts by corporates to reshape supply chains.
“Trade assets represent a growing asset class that institutional investors want access to,” says Vivek Ramachandran, head of Global Trade Solutions at HSBC.
“This new strategy brings together our global reach, origination strength and innovation to deliver robust trade finance solutions to clients and economies worldwide.”
HSBC says the “evolving tariff landscape” has boosted demand for trade finance, echoing comments by chief executive Georges Elhedery in July that uncertainty around trade policy and cost is an opportunity for the bank to differentiate and gain market share.
In May, it unveiled a working capital financing product for US clients facing an increase in upfront import duties.
Borja Azpilicueta, head of Capital Solutions at HSBC Asset Management, says the latest strategy is launched “at a time when shifting global trade dynamics are driving increased demand for trade finance, creating potentially compelling new investment opportunities.”
“With access to the deal flow of the world’s leading trade finance bank, we’re well positioned to deliver a diversified private credit solution that combines high credit quality with low correlation to markets,” he says.
Azpilicueta adds the launch is a “significant milestone in the expansion of our alternative credit platform”.
