NabInvest's new credit opportunities boutique firm, Wiltshire Capital, will continue the same investment strategy that was adopted by Cognis Capital, the firm Wiltshire's Australia-born founder and chief executive John Sullivan helped found.
The partnership between the three founders of United Kingdom-based Cognis Capital dissolved in early 2008, after a conflict of opinion arose about the future of the firm.
"The partners had different views on where they wanted to take the business in terms of growth and developing strategic opportunities," Sullivan said.
"I had clear ideas about growth, but one of the partners was happy with the status quo.
"When you are in a partnership and something like that happens you need to move on."
Cognis Capital was founded by three former Royal Bank of Scotland investment managers, Paul Hollowday, Myra Tabor and Sullivan, in 2003 and grew to US$500 million in assets under management.
Tabor remains as the only founding partner in the firm, while Hollowday left Cognis in February 2008 and joined investment manager ZaisGroup International as head of European corporate credit last year.
But Wiltshire, which has recently been established, is unlikely to find much competition from Cognis, as it is understood the firm's fund is being wound up and the underlying investments sold after the departure of Hollowday and Sullivan.
Wilthsire will give Australian investors access to the largely over-the-counter sub-investment-grade debt market in Europe.
This market is generally hard to access for Australian institutional investors, while this type of credit is largely absent from the Australian market.
"In Australia there is not really any sub-investment-grade bond market available. The handful of bonds that are issued in Australia are investment grade, which doesn't offer much in terms of return," Sullivan said.
Sullivan said he targeted an internal rate of return of 15 per cent throughout the cycle, without limited leveraging.
He said 8 per cent to 10 per cent of that came from coupons, while 6 per cent to 10 per cent came from corporate events that led to an evaluation of credit, including listings, trade sales, tenders, rating upgrades and deleveraging.
Events that led to an increase in credit value did not only present themselves among distressed companies, he said.
"It is not a distressed debt fund. A good company that is performing well has the ability to get rid of sub-investment-grade debt, which is relatively expensive to service," he said.
When a company seeks to terminate these loans early this often creates additional returns. They have to buy us out, either on par or against a penalty."
The fund has a low trading volume of about one or two trades a months, and generally holds about 20 positions.
