MA Financial is bringing a new fixed income alternative to the ASX
MA Financial's Frank Danieli says its new Credit Portfolio Notes will give investors even more options in building a portfolio.
Please note this interview was filmed on 12 November 2025.
The world of public and private markets are becoming more intertwined and that is a good thing for investors, says MA Financial's Head of Global Credit Solutions, Frank Danieli.
"We really believe at MA that there's going to be a convergence between private and public markets. These things are going to come together," says Danieli.
According to Danieli, the changing credit landscape is opening up new doors for investors.
"What we're trying to do in the world of private credit is really to find areas where banks used to lend but they can't lend anymore," he says. "That might be because of regulation, market structure changes or might be areas where the banks just aren't efficient."
"These are really big opportunities. The lending markets are very large in Australia, over $3 trillion, and globally - many, many tens of trillions of dollars."
Earlier this year, MA Financial Group launched its MA Credit Income Trust (ASX: MA1) to give retail investors better access to the growing private credit markets, and now it's bringing another of its long-running strategies to the public markets as the MA Credit Portfolio Notes (ASX: MA2HA).
"We think that bringing our unlisted style of products to the listed markets is really helpful because it creates more access points for investors depending upon their own risk tolerance, their preferences, what they need for liquidity as well as the returns that they're seeking," says Danieli.
"These notes are not the same thing as MA one wrapped in a note format. It's actually a different underlying portfolio and a different strategy for, in our view, a different part of the investor's portfolio or different type of investors."
Where MA1 is trying to capture the alpha across the private credit market, MA2HA has "a narrower set of portfolio guidelines," says Danieli.
"They're designed to be a core fixed income alternative, and they are in a note structure that means there's a call date and a hard maturity date."
"There is a 0% hard limit on exposure to construction development finance. There's no direct real estate lending in the portfolio, and it doesn't include some of those more bespoke high-yield strategies. It's asset-backed lending and it's corporate lending, which we believe really have that core fixed income characteristic."
The MA strategy
There are three core focuses that Danieli says sets MA Financial apart. "We're very focused on alignment, proprietary origination and workouts capabilities," he says.
"We believe in credit that, as a manager, you should be co-investing with your clients. We do that at MA Financial today, we have about $230 million from the firm and staff co-invested in our underlying strategies with our clients. So we really eat our own cooking."
"Secondly, as investors too, we really care about what types of credit, what types of loans are going into the funds that we manage," Danieli said. "And that's why we focus on proprietary origination. We want to be the one out there structuring the terms, the pricing, the security, the covenants, the feature of these loans and sourcing them for our funds."
MA Financial is in a position where it can be careful about the deals it signs.
"We now see over $30 billion a year of deal flow opportunities. We curate from that. We still only execute maybe 5-10% of what we see, so we're selective, but we set a really wide funnel of opportunities that we can execute on, and we think that's really important in the world of lending."
"We believe credit is all about avoiding losers, not picking winners."
Credit markets require a fundamentally different approach to that of other asset classes, where the emphasis is on risk mitigation and defensiveness.
"It's almost the opposite way of thinking to equities," says Danieli. "In our business, we can only get our principal back when we make a loan and get the interest that we're contractually owed. So we need to make sure we have big diversified portfolios, we have the right asset backing or defensive features in the loans we make, but most importantly, if something goes wrong, we need to be able to go in and get our money back on that individual position."
"We've got a real advantage there because within the MA group, our advisory business is the leading firm in Australia in special situations and restructuring. We understand the dark side of credit, we know what goes wrong. We use it to avoid problems in the first place, but if something doesn't work, we know how to go in and to fix the problem."
The Notes will also launch with a 5% first loss capital buffer to help mitigate losses and sharpen focus.
"We think this creates a real alignment of interest because as the manager of the note portfolio, we're very incentivised to invest in good quality credit that's going to perform," said Danieli.
Where they invest
There are two exposures underpinning the Notes - asset-backed lending and direct corporate lending. Asset-backed lending accounts for around 80% of the portfolio, with corporate lending accounting for the remaining 20%.
On the corporate lending side, it's about picking out the right companies to lend to.
"We are looking for companies with sensible levels of leverage that have real cashflow capability to service their loans, that they've got a real market position in their space and where there's a lot of equity behind us," said Danieli.
In terms of asset-backed lending, Danieli describes it as "real world finance - big portfolios of loans, home loans, car loans, business loans, equipment and asset finance."
The key focus is on maximising the natural diversification offered in the sector. The notes will launch with around $2.7 billion across 94 positions and 16 lending segments, and more than 700,000 loans, says Danieli.
"What you're doing is not taking a view on just one particular loan, but how a whole portfolio of them are going to perform. You get a lot of diversity embedded in your portfolio."
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Tom is a Content Editor at Livewire Markets, having worked as a writer and editor for 10 years, specialising in investing and personal finance.
He has previously worked at Finder, FourFourTwo and Man Of Many covering everything from film to football.
He has a Masters in Media Production and a Bachelor's in Journalism.
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This website and the documents available on it relate to the invitation by MA Credit Portfolio Holdings Limited ACN 691 943 638 (the Issuer) to apply for new Notes for issue in the Issuer's public offering of Notes and admission to the official list of the Australian Securities Exchange (Offer) as an ASX Debt Listing. MA Investment Management Pty Ltd ACN 621 552 896 Australian Financial Services Representative Number 001258449 is the appointed investment manager to manage the proceeds of the Notes (Manager). Relevant documents, including the prospectus lodged with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) in connection with the Offer (Prospectus):
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The Prospectus was lodged with ASIC on, and is dated, 18 November 2025. The Prospectus, in which the Offer of Notes is made, is available and can be obtained at this website: https://mafinancial.com/invest/private-credit/ma-credit-portfolio-notes
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Tom is a Content Editor at Livewire Markets, having worked as a writer and editor for 10 years, specialising in investing and personal finance. He has previously worked at Finder, FourFourTwo and Man Of Many covering everything from film to...
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Tom is a Content Editor at Livewire Markets, having worked as a writer and editor for 10 years, specialising in investing and personal finance. He has previously worked at Finder, FourFourTwo and Man Of Many covering everything from film to...
Expertise
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