The Discipline of Yes: How Peninsula Credit Is Building Private Credit the New Zealand Way
With more than NZ$150 million under management and a loan book spread across the backbone of the New Zealand economy, Peninsula Credit is showing what disciplined, senior-secured lending looks like in practice.
From an office on Auckland’s Viaduct Harbour, a team of former bankers has spent the past three years building one of New Zealand’s more distinctive private credit businesses. Peninsula Credit, established in September 2023 by former corporate and commercial lenders from ANZ, now manages in excess of NZ$150 million across two funds, with 69% of that capital deployed into loans to established New Zealand businesses.
Its approach is deliberately unglamorous. Peninsula Credit lends to proven, profitable companies that pay their interest in cash, every quarter, and it secures every loan against the business and assets behind it. At a time when private credit is attracting scrutiny offshore, most visibly in Australia, where losses have centred on residential property development, that approach is a point of difference investors are noticing. Peninsula Credit has never lent to property development, and its mandate excludes it. The team are watchful of those deploying into the New Zealand property sector to address cash drags in the absence of a fully formed network.
“Private credit is not one thing. What matters is how a manager lends and who it lends to. Our investors know exactly what they own: senior-secured loans to established New Zealand businesses that pay their interest in cash, every quarter,”
said Andrew Pryde, Managing Director at Peninsula Credit.
Who you say yes to
Discipline in lending is often described in terms of what a manager will not do. Peninsula Credit has its exclusions: no property development or early stage businesses. But the firm argues that the more telling measure is the bar a borrower has to clear to be accepted.
That bar is high. Only around 4% of the lending applications Peninsula Credit receives make it through to drawdown. Each one is tested against the same questions. Is the business established and profitable? Can it pay cash interest today from its own trading? And is the security strong enough to protect investors if circumstances change? This is a difference that the Peninsula Credit team brings, the longstanding, and deep, knowledge of the New Zealand market, knowing how to properly assess the risks of each and every lending opportunity.
“It is more important who we say yes to than what we say no to. Every yes puts our investors’ capital, and our own, behind a New Zealand business, so it has to be earned,”
said Andrew Pryde, Managing Director at Peninsula Credit.
How a Peninsula Credit loan is built
Cash interest, not promises. Peninsula Credit does not use payment-in-kind (PIK) structures or capitalised interest, arrangements in which unpaid interest is added to the loan balance rather than paid. Every borrower must demonstrate the ability to pay regular cash interest from reliable business cashflows, and it is that cash which funds the quarterly distributions Peninsula Credit has paid to its investors since inception.
Security that counts. Loans are senior-secured, supported by mortgages over business assets, charges over the shares of the borrowing business and, in some cases, personal guarantees from business owners. Independent third-party valuations are obtained on business assets, so security values rest on objective evidence rather than optimistic assumptions.
Covenants that watch the cash. Each loan carries a tailored package of financial and reporting covenants, tested quarterly, with a particular focus on tracking cash generation. The aim is early warning: any change in a borrower’s performance should surface well before it becomes a problem.
Loans typically run for 18 months to three years and are structured to be refinanced back to a trading bank at the end of the term, rather than repaid from the sale of an asset or the completion of a project.
A portfolio across New Zealand’s working economy
Peninsula Credit’s June 2026 quarterly update shows how broadly that discipline has been applied. The portfolio now spans horticulture, viticulture, renewable energy, infrastructure services, facilities services and e-commerce, each sector chosen for the reliability of its cashflows rather than the promise of capital gains.
The borrowers are recognisable parts of the economy. They include an apple orchard and packhouse business that exports its entire apple crop to markets across Asia, Europe and North America; a Marlborough winery behind one of New Zealand’s best known wine brands; a solar energy provider whose income rests on long-term Power Purchase Agreements with dairy farmers; a commercial laundry accredited for healthcare, serving hospitals, airlines and hotels; and an e-commerce business that connects New Zealand sellers with global online marketplaces. Tennex Group, which manages infectious and biosecurity waste for hospitals, airports and seaports under long-term contracts, is another.
The common thread is contracted, recurring revenue from customers who need the service whatever the economic weather. For investors in Asia, there is a pleasing symmetry: the fruit their capital helps to grow may well end up on shelves close to home.
“We lend to the backbone of New Zealand: the growers, energy producers and service businesses that keep the country running. These are businesses with real customers and real cashflows, and that is what our investors’ income is built on,”
said Andrew Pryde, Managing Director at Peninsula Credit.
Experience earned through the cycle
Peninsula Credit’s founders bring more than 100 years of combined New Zealand business lending experience from ANZ, New Zealand’s largest bank, including time in its workout division, the team that manages loans when borrowers run into difficulty. Lenders who have worked on the hard end of the credit cycle tend to write loans differently at the start.
Governance includes an independent chair, an independent Investment Committee member and Deloitte as auditor. Alignment is built in: the management team has made a multi-million dollar co-investment of its own capital across the two funds, in excess of 10% of the funds under management. The loans are shared across both, so management’s money sits alongside investor money in each transaction. This frames the careful and considered approach to investing, a real differentiator in New Zealand’s Private Credit market.
The record so far reflects that discipline. No borrower has defaulted since establishment and, as at September 2026, Peninsula Credit reported no covenant breaches and all accrued interest received, with every loan valued at a unit price of NZ$1.00.
Why it matters to wholesale and AIP investors
For New Zealand wholesale investors, Peninsula Credit Fund II LP offers floating-rate income priced over the 90-day bank bill rate (BKBM), targeting a net return of 6.72% per annum (indicative), after fees and costs. This return paid in cash each quarter is made up of the BKBM (3.22% as at 30 September 2026) + 3.50% per annum, after fees and costs. Due to the structure of Peninsula Credit’s term sheets, quarterly interest cash payments have been received on all loans resulting in transparent returns for investors every quarter along with portfolio loans stated at full value. The trade-off, as with all private credit, is liquidity: capital is committed for a defined period, which is why the asset class pays a premium over bank deposits. Peninsula Credit have consistently exceeded target returns for investors, the benefit of effective fund managers.
For international investors pursuing residency, Fund II is listed as an Acceptable Managed Fund under the Active Investor Plus (AIP) visa Growth Category, and its three-year investment period aligns with the Growth Category’s minimum investment term. Only Fund II is available to AIP visa applicants. That approval is a compliance assessment by Invest New Zealand rather than an endorsement of returns, which is why the advisers who guide these investors, from law firms and wealth managers to immigration consultants, look closely at governance, security and alignment of interest. Those are the questions at the heart of Peninsula Credit it is what makes them effective.
The bigger picture for New Zealand’s mid-market
Beyond any single fund, the case for private credit in New Zealand rests on a structural gap. The Reserve Bank’s capital adequacy reforms have pushed the major trading banks toward simpler, more standardised lending, leaving many well-run mid-market businesses without finance suited to acquisitions, investment programmes or periods of transition. Direct lending from specialist managers fills that gap, and with KiwiSaver providers signalling plans to lift their allocations to private assets, the market is set to grow.
How it grows will matter. Experience elsewhere shows what happens when a private credit market becomes concentrated in its riskiest corner. New Zealand has the opportunity to build its market around mid-market lending to real businesses, with real security and real cash interest.
“New Zealand’s private credit market is still young, and that gives us the chance to build it properly. When capital backs established businesses that pay their way, investors earn a reliable income and the country’s economy is stronger for it,”
said Andrew Pryde, Managing Director at Peninsula Credit.
Peninsula Credit Fund II LP is open to wholesale investors as defined under New Zealand’s Financial Markets Conduct Act 2013, including applicants under the Active Investor Plus (AIP) visa Growth Category. AIP visa eligibility and acceptable investment status are determined solely by Immigration New Zealand and Invest New Zealand respectively. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance. This article does not constitute financial, investment, legal, tax or immigration advice, and prospective investors should seek independent professional advice. Further information is available at peninsulacredit.co.nz