Mindaugas Suklevicius – Founder and Fund Manager at HF Quarters
Private credit is scaling fast across Europe and the Gulf. The common thread in both regions is straightforward: encourage origination, raise the bar on controls, and make the rulebook fit the asset class. That is why the fund chassis is a core part of the investment story and no longer a back-office detail.
Under AIFMD II, loan-originating AIFs operate with hard parameters that allocators can underwrite. The law sets leverage caps of 175% for open-ended AIFs and 300% for closed-ended AIFs using the commitment method.
ADGM went further by creating a specialist Private Credit Fund category inside its FUNDS Rulebook, supported by Supplementary Guidance. The framework sets eligibility, authorisation and ongoing requirements. It makes clear that private-credit funds are Exempt Funds or Qualified Investor Funds offered to Professional Clients, with systems and controls calibrated for origination and lending.
In DIFC, the DFSA channels sophisticated money through Qualified Investor Funds (QIFs) and Exempt Funds. These are notification-based rather than full product approvals and are limited to Professional Clients, which keeps the focus on governance and disclosures rather than retail packaging. The DFSA aims to turn around complete QIF notifications in about two business days and Exempt Funds in about five business days.
Platforms work best when the fund architecture mirrors the life cycle of private credit itself: origination, monitoring, valuation and exit. Europe’s leverage and liquidity parameters, ADGM’s purpose-built regime, and DIFC’s professional-only rails each make that mapping explicit, which is precisely the measurable clarity that investment committees are looking for.