A new tool to support the growth of the private capital markets in the Channel Islands and further afield has been launched by a local firm. 

Kroll, a provider of financial and risk advisory solutions, and StepStone Group, a private markets solutions provider, have launched the Kroll StepStone Private Credit Benchmarks. 

Kroll says the Benchmarks will be a “new global industry standard” and enable “more robust and rigorous valuations” to provide intelligence into an asset class’s investment characteristics. 

The tool is likely to be particularly valuable for private investors making the shift into professional or institutional markets – a growing trend the firm says has already been seen in Jersey’s and Guernsey’s funds sectors – as well as promoters, fund boards and administrators when pricing issues or reviewing market pricing trends. 

The Private Credit Benchmarks are a result of an “industry-first” collaboration and built using loan-level data and information from more than 15,000 deals. 

“Developed with the long-standing and data-driven private markets expertise of Kroll and StepStone Group, the Benchmarks deliver more timely, reliable and actionable insights, on an anonymised basis, which are essential to the accelerated growth of private investment markets,” said Ed Shorrock, Managing Director – Jersey, at Kroll. 

The Benchmarks will be updated weekly with new primary market data and provide aggregated, anonymised, filterable insights across regions, sectors, size and loan security. 

This includes extensive coverage across US and European markets, facilitating targeted and timelier capital allocation decision-making. 

“At a global level, investor interest and confidence in private markets is clearly growing, fuelled in part by the ‘retailification’ of private capital and we expect allocations to private markets to continue rising in the years ahead. It is a shift already evident in Jersey and Guernsey, with the jurisdictions’ strong track records in both private wealth and alternative funds positioning them well to support this trend,” said Mr Shorrock. 

“Both islands offer market-leading private fund structuring options, as well as attractive legal and regulatory frameworks, providing private investors with the credibility, tools, and infrastructure they need to operate confidently in a more professional investment environment. Our expectation is that this tool can feed into that landscape, responding to market demand with a rigorous solution that provides vital intelligence for industry participants.” 

Marcel Schindler, Partner and CEO of StepStone Private Debt, added: “We continue to see strong demand for private credit solutions across the world’s investors and, with that, comes an increasing need for clarity and granular benchmarks in this rapidly evolving asset class. 

“By combining Kroll’s robust dataset in private credit with complementary data contained within our SPI by StepStone platform, we’re building a powerful intelligence toolkit that enables improved decision-making for investors and market participants across the private credit ecosystem.”