Merseyside Pension Fund, Liverpool, England, seeded U.K. SME Direct Lending Fund I with £30 million ($38 million), said Owen Thorne, the £9 billion pension fund's investment manager, in an email.
The fund, managed by global loans platform Funding Circle, allows institutional investors to lend directly to U.K. small and medium enterprises.
The fund, which has an eight-year closed-end structure, targets an annualized net return of between 5.5% and 6.5%.
"As a responsible investor with a public service ethos, Merseyside increasingly looks to deliver 'positive real-world' impacts through its investment strategy such as supporting job growth both in our region and the U.K. as a whole," Mr. Thorne added.
