Alex Vynokur
Betashares, a leading Australian financial services company, today announced a significant expansion of its investment offering with the formation of Betashares Private Capital, a dedicated division focused on delivering institutional grade private market investment solutions to wholesale investors, Australian financial advisers and their clients.
The development marks a significant milestone in Betashares’ mission to help Australians achieve their financial goals by providing access to intelligent investment opportunities. Private assets can offer a compelling risk-adjusted return profile and can be highly complementary to a diversified investment portfolio of equities and bonds. As a result, there has been strong demand from investors and their financial advisers for high calibre exposures in Australia.
Betashares Private Capital will selectively partner with leading global private asset managers to deliver improved access to institutional-grade investment opportunities that traditionally have been reserved for the world’s largest investors.
Betashares Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Mr Alex Vynokur, said: “For nearly 15 years, we have consistently raised the bar, providing convenient and cost-effective access to high quality investment solutions. We have pioneered the delivery of access to a growing range of asset classes and investment styles that have historically been the domain of institutional investors. We’re now taking the next step by providing access to private assets in line with our guiding value of building cost-effective and diversified wealth solutions,” Mr Vynokur said.
The first partnership is with US-based fund manager, Cliffwater. Underpinning this partnership is a shared belief in the value of cost-effective and diversified investments, which in this case, will extend to offering an AUD-hedged exposure to their flagship US private credit strategy.
The underlying Cliffwater Corporate Lending Fund Platform provides exposure to direct loans to primarily US middle market companies. Cliffwater utilises an innovative ‘multi-lender’ model, partnering with a number of the world’s leading lenders, such as Carlyle, HPS and Barings among others, to build a highly selective and diversified portfolio of loans with attractive yields.
The Fund Platform currently has exposure to over 3,900 loans across varied industries including IT, Healthcare, Industrials and Financials. It has provided investors with attractive, income paid quarterly, by investing predominantly in senior secured, floating-rate loans to healthy businesses. This high-quality loan portfolio historically has demonstrated a high degree of capital stability and has returned 9.63% net annualised in US dollars since inception in June 2019, as at the end of June 2025 [1].
In recognition of their track record and pedigree, Cliffwater has had strong support from US financial advisers and their clients and ranks among the top US private credit fund managers for investment inflows. The firm now manages the largest suite of private markets interval funds, including US$30 billion in its flagship private credit fund that Betashares will access. Over time, Betashares and Cliffwater will look to deepen their partnership by extending the range of investment exposures available to eligible investors.
Welcoming the new partnership, Cliffwater Founder and CEO, Mr Stephen Nesbitt, said Cliffwater’s range of innovative private assets solutions, to be made available via Betashares, will be extremely additive to the Australian market.
“Our US private credit funds have seen significant investor interest given their performance and highly diversified and defensive nature of their investment strategies. Our US private credit strategies have also been cycle-tested, producing attractive levels of income with low volatility across a range of different market conditions. Our unique multi-lender model has allowed us to avoid the pitfalls of other private credit funds that are often far more concentrated in single positions or sectors, while also maintaining strong, risk-adjusted total returns,” Mr Nesbitt said.
Mr Vynokur continued: “Despite the increased demand for private assets, Australia remains relatively underserved by high quality, global investment options. We believe there is a real opportunity to address this gap, and with that enable Australian investors and their financial advisers to have the opportunity to improve risk adjusted returns in portfolios by including robust, diversified private asset investments.”
Importantly, Betashares will offer exposure to private assets in a responsible way that aligns with the liquidity profile of the underlying portfolio holdings. The new fund will be initially made available in Australia as an unlisted fund via investment platforms to financial advisers for client portfolios, and to investors who qualify as wholesale clients, via Betashares Direct. As part of its new offering, Betashares is committed to enhancing investor education in this market segment and will be delivering institutional grade investment materials and educational content about private assets, their risks, benefits and their place in a well-rounded portfolio.
The launch of Betashares Private Capital comes as the firm recently reached $55 billion in assets under management following a period of strong organic growth. It also follows last year’s strategic investment from Temasek, a global investment company headquartered in Singapore, which is aligned with Betashares’ long-term strategy of continuing to build a diversified financial services business – to which private assets is expected to make a meaningful contribution. To achieve its stated mission, Betashares is undertaking a range of initiatives that highlight a strong focus on delivering transparent, cost-effective investment products, portfolio solutions, services, technologies and financial education – all with the unique needs of Australian investors in mind.
Betashares’ first private credit exposure is expected to launch in late August.