Peninsula Credit's facility to Tennex Group, the company behind New Zealand's specialist healthcare and biosecurity waste management, hygiene supply, and commercial laundry, is a case study in what modern private credit lending looks like, and why it matters.
When New Zealand's hospitals dispose of infectious waste, when Air New Zealand's biosecurity waste is processed, when the public and private health sectors' store rooms are restocked each morning, the people making that happen are businesses like Tennex Group.
They are not glamorous. They are essential. And like many of New Zealand's most important mid-market businesses, they needed growth capital that the major trading banks were not positioned to provide.
Peninsula Credit, a New Zealand private credit fund manager established in 2023, stepped in. The Auckland-based firm, founded by a team of former ANZ Bank corporate bankers with more than 100 years of lending experience between them, committed a senior-secured term debt facility to Tennex Group to support a clearly defined strategic growth programme.
The transaction is now one of the most instructive examples in New Zealand's emerging private credit market of what bespoke, relationship-led business lending can achieve.
The Business: Multiple Brands, One Purpose
Tennex Group is the parent entity for a number of operating businesses including Interwaste, which manages infectious and biosecurity waste for New Zealand’s healthcare sector and the country’s ports of entry and Pacific Hygiene and Core Hygiene, which supply medical consumables, hygiene products and washroom services to healthcare, hospitality, and commercial clients. APL, a specialist hygienic laundry, providing commercial laundering services.
Across their businesses, the common thread is non-discretionary, contracted service delivery to some of New Zealand's most demanding clients. Hospitals and healthcare providers cannot opt out of biohazardous waste management. Airlines, cargo and cruise ships require the removal and treatment of all biosecurity waste. This kind of defensive, recurring revenue is, in private credit terms, precisely what a sound loan looks like.
Sustainability and the circular economy are embedded throughout the Tennex model. Pacific Hygiene sustainably sources healthcare and hygiene products designed to reduce consumable waste, Interwaste collects, decontaminates, and processes material that would otherwise require treatment as hazardous waste, and the group's investment in Nurox hydrothermal technology represents a significant step forward: a groundbreaking decontamination process that is zero to landfill, produces genuine full circle environmental outcomes, eliminates the need to ship hazardous material to Australia, and produces none of the harmful outputs associated with traditional incineration.
“Tennex Group has a demonstrated history of delivering critical services to New Zealand's largest health and tourism providers. The business benefits from long-term sustainable revenue streams, a proven and capable leadership team, and a stable ownership group.”
Andrew Pryde, Managing Director, Peninsula Credit
The Moment: Leadership, Acquisition, and Ambition
When Tennex Group came to Peninsula Credit, the business was at an inflection point. Kevin Hyland had been appointed Chief Executive Officer in July 2025, bringing with him a mandate to integrate the group's recently acquired businesses, sharpen operational efficiency across the businesses, and chart a sustainable growth course for the years ahead.
At the same time, the group was investing forward. It had recently acquired a specialist hygienic laundry business and was investing in Nurox, a hydrothermal waste processing technology and a next-generation cleantech solution that treats infectious and biosecurity waste on-site using superheated water, reducing transport requirements and the associated carbon intensity of traditional waste management. It is a material investment, and one that speaks to where Tennex is heading rather than simply where it has been.
For a business in that position, integrating acquisitions, investing in innovation, transforming leadership, and refinancing existing debt, a standard bank loan product is rarely adequate. The New Zealand trading banks' credit frameworks are largely designed for standardised situations; a business in strategic transition, investing ahead of its cashflow curve, can fall outside what those frameworks will accommodate. Peninsula Credit's framework is different. It assesses forward cashflow capacity and strategic direction, not simply historical earnings.
“The Tennex transaction required a lender who could understand the business, its strategic direction and who was willing to structure a facility around where the business is going, as opposed to making a purely scorecard-based historical assessment.”
Andrew Pryde, Managing Director, Peninsula Credit
The Deal: Structure, Security, and Speed
The facility Peninsula Credit committed to Tennex Group is a senior-secured term loan structured around the group's projected cashflows and its four-part growth agenda: operational efficiency improvements under the new leadership; capital expenditure including the Interwaste hydrothermal programme; refinancing of existing debt into a single, coherent capital structure; and integration of APL Commercial Laundry into the broader group.
The loan is floating-rate, priced over the New Zealand 90-day bank bill rate (BKBM), with interest paid quarterly. The security package includes general and specific charges over business assets, security interests over the group's issued capital, and corporate guarantees. This is the same standard applied by New Zealand's major trading banks, delivered with the flexibility and execution speed that those banks increasingly cannot match.
For Tennex Group, the value was not simply the capital. It was certainty. A mid-market business navigating a leadership transition and an acquisition integration does not have the luxury of a protracted approval process. Peninsula Credit's experienced investment committee, which includes members with longstanding familiarity with the Tennex ownership group through their extensive history in the New Zealand market, moved from initial engagement to credit approval and deployment with the kind of decisiveness that a transaction of this nature required.
“Peninsula Credit supports proven and established New Zealand businesses benefitting from quality operators, as Tennex demonstrates. Our team was able to structure a facility which provided the certainty and flexibility the Tennex management team required to execute on their growth and investment plans.”
Andrew Pryde, Managing Director, Peninsula Credit
“We have enjoyed working with Peninsula. They took the time to understand our business and were able to very quickly turn around flexible, pragmatic solutions to support our growth and shareholders.”
Lincoln Falconer, Chairman, Tennex Group
The Investor Perspective: Income Without the Volatility
The transaction was supported by both the closed end fund, Peninsula Credit Fund I, and Peninsula Credit Fund II. Peninsula Credit Fund II is open to wholesale investors, including applicants under New Zealand's Active Investor Plus (AIP) visa Growth Category. The fund targets a net return of BKBM + 3.50% per annum, distributed to investors in cash at each quarter end.
The Tennex Group transaction exemplifies Peninsula Credit's investment mandate in clear terms: senior-secured lending to an established, profitable, diversified New Zealand operating business in a defensive sector, with no exposure to property development, start-ups, or venture capital. Interest income is generated from the outset and paid quarterly, a cashflow profile that sits entirely outside listed equity market movements.
One structural feature of Peninsula Credit's model deserves particular attention. The firm's management team has made a multi-million co-investment of its own capital across its two funds. Every loan in the portfolio, including the Tennex Group facility, holds management capital alongside investor capital. Alignment of interest is embedded in the structure, not promised in the documentation.
New Zealand's private credit market remains young by global standards, but the trajectory is clear. Peninsula Credit has now deployed in excess of NZ$60 million across its loan portfolio since establishment, with a zero default rate and a growing pipeline of established New Zealand businesses seeking the kind of bespoke, relationship-led capital that the trading banks are no longer consistently providing.
The Bigger Picture: Private Credit's Role in the New Zealand Economy
The Tennex Group transaction is notable not just for what it achieves for the two parties directly involved, but for what it illustrates about the structural gap that private credit is filling in New Zealand's capital markets.
New Zealand's mid-market, profitable privately-held businesses generating between NZ$5 million and NZ$50 million in annual revenue, is the backbone of the country's economy. These businesses employ the majority of New Zealand workers, deliver the majority of essential services, and generate the majority of corporate tax revenue. They are also, increasingly, the businesses that the trading banks find hardest to serve well.
The Reserve Bank's capital adequacy reforms have structurally shifted the risk appetite of New Zealand's major lenders toward simpler, more standardised credit. The complexity and bespoke structuring required by a business like Tennex Group, in transition, investing forward, and integrating acquisitions, falls outside what a standardised bank product can accommodate. Private credit fills that gap.
“When Peninsula Credit backs a business like Tennex Group, it is not simply deploying capital. It is reinforcing the infrastructure of the New Zealand economy, the essential services that keep hospitals running, flights hygienic, and workplaces safe.”
Andrew Pryde, Managing Director, Peninsula Credit
For businesses of Tennex Group's calibre, the emergence of Peninsula Credit represents a meaningful expansion of the capital options available to New Zealand's most important private companies. For investors seeking income, diversification, and exposure to the real New Zealand economy, it represents something equally valuable: an asset class built on exactly the kind of businesses that New Zealand cannot afford to go without.
FOR INVESTORS
Invest in the Real New Zealand Economy
Peninsula Credit Fund II is open to wholesale investors and Active Investor Plus (AIP) visa applicants. If you are seeking income, diversification, and direct exposure to established New Zealand businesses, we welcome a conversation.
Contact Andrew Pryde: andrew@peninsulacredit.co.nz | +64 27 275 5031
FOR BORROWERS
Capital Structured Around Where Your Business Is Going
If your business is growing, acquiring, or refinancing and the major trading banks are not meeting your needs, Peninsula Credit may be able to help. We assess forward cashflow capacity and strategic direction, not just historical earnings.
Contact Matt Kendrick: matt@peninsulacredit.co.nz | +64 21 070 6188
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. This article does not constitute financial, investment, legal, tax, or immigration advice. Prospective investors and borrowers should seek independent professional advice. Further information is available at peninsulacredit.co.nz.