Metrics Credit Partners: non-bank corporate and real estate lending

Why would a company borrow from a fund manager rather than a bank? For a growing number of Australian mid-market businesses and property developers, the answer is flexibility: a non-bank lender can structure a facility around a deal that doesn’t sit neatly inside bank policy. Metrics Credit Partners is one of the largest names doing this, and it lends to listed companies, private businesses and developers.

This profile covers what Metrics publishes about its lending as at October 2026, who it’s realistically for, and what a smaller business should look at instead.

How Metrics is structured

Metrics Credit Partners Pty Ltd (AFSL 416146) launched its first wholesale fund in 2013. It describes itself as a non-bank lender and alternative asset manager: it gathers capital from investors and lends it to companies and projects.

What’s unusual is where some of that capital comes from. Metrics manages ASX-listed trusts, including the Metrics Master Income Trust (MXT), the Metrics Income Opportunities Trust (MOT) and the Metrics Real Estate Multi-Strategy Fund (MRE). When someone buys units in one of those trusts on the share market, their money ends up, indirectly, in corporate and property loans. Alongside the listed trusts sit unlisted, wholesale and institutional funds.

As at 30 June 2026, Metrics reports more than $54b committed across around 1,600 transactions since 2013.

What Metrics lends for

Its borrowing solutions page groups the lending like this:

Category	Examples Metrics lists
Corporate lending	Loans to listed and private companies, syndicated facilities with banks, tailored structures
Acquisition finance	Funding to buy another company
Project and infrastructure	Debt for infrastructure and project purposes
Commercial real estate	Development projects and property investments
Residential development	Land subdivisions, medium-density and high-rise residential
Property investment	Industrial, commercial and retail property
Specialised asset finance	Asset-backed, structured and specialised property finance

Separately, Metrics provides agency and security trustee services. In a syndicated loan with several lenders, an agent handles the administration and a security trustee holds the security for all of them. It’s a back-office role, but it tells you the size of transaction Metrics is set up for.

It also has a real estate equity arm that takes joint venture stakes in development projects with established developers, from small apartment blocks to large master-planned estates.

Lending beside the banks, not just instead of them

Metrics says it can lend alongside syndicate banks or provide the whole facility itself, and that it works across the credit spectrum from investment grade to sub-investment grade. That has a practical meaning for borrowers.

Consider an invented example. A private manufacturing group wants to buy a competitor for $60m. Its bank is comfortable lending $35m on a senior basis but won’t go further. A non-bank lender might provide the remaining debt as a separate tranche, or the company might replace the whole bank facility with one negotiated non-bank loan with covenants that suit its cash flow. The bank’s money is still usually cheaper; the non-bank piece is what makes the deal possible.

That’s a healthy way to think about banks generally. If a bank will fund all of what you need on terms you can live with, take it seriously. Lenders like Metrics are most useful where the bank stops.

Smaller than a $60m acquisition, but stuck at the same point where the bank stopped? Tell us where the gap is and we’ll suggest lenders who work at your size.

Who Metrics is realistically for

Metrics doesn’t publish minimum loan sizes or a borrower checklist. Its own description of itself, its listed funds and its agency services all point to:

• Mid-market and large companies with audited financials and a defined transaction, such as an acquisition, a refinance or a growth project.
• Property developers with a track record, delivering residential subdivisions, apartments or commercial projects.
• Owners of investment property in industrial, commercial or retail sectors looking for structured finance.
• Borrowers already working with an adviser who can negotiate terms, covenants and security.

It’s not designed for a tradie wanting a ute, a café needing $40k before Christmas, or a sole trader with an ATO debt. Those needs have faster and simpler homes elsewhere in this directory.

Questions a borrower should settle before signing

Large negotiated facilities carry terms that smaller loans rarely do. Before committing to Metrics or any non-bank corporate lender, get clear answers on:

1. Financial covenants. What ratios must the business maintain, how often are they tested, and what happens on a breach? Our glossary entry on covenants explains the common ones.
2. The full fee load in dollars, including establishment, commitment or line fees, agency fees and early repayment costs.
3. Security package. Is the lender taking a general security agreement over the whole business, specific property, or both?
4. Ranking. If a bank is also lending, who gets paid first, and what does the intercreditor arrangement allow each lender to do?
5. Refinancing path. When the loan matures, what would a bank need to see to take it out?

Better-sized alternatives for small and medium businesses

If Metrics is clearly too big a lender for your need, start here instead:

• Buying a business under a few million dollars: business acquisition loans covers bank and non-bank options.
• Property you own, cash needed fast: a second mortgage or caveat loan can settle in days rather than months.
• Development or land: construction and development finance explains how smaller projects are funded.
• Choosing between lender types: our non-bank vs private lender comparison weighs speed, cost and flexibility.

Other large private credit managers profiled here include MaxCap Group, which focuses on real estate credit, and Zagga, whose minimum loan is generally $5m.

Need funding on a smaller scale than Metrics?

Metrics is a serious lender for serious-sized deals. Most business owners, though, need a lender who’ll look at a property-backed or cash flow loan in the tens or hundreds of thousands and give a straight answer quickly.

That’s the gap we cover. Putting in an enquiry is a one-minute job and creates no mark on your credit report. Nothing gets broadcast to a list of strangers in the lending trade. A specialist on our team works through your circumstances and then picks up the phone. Take care with the answers, especially turnover, security and timing, so that the first suggestion we make is one that can actually be approved.

See which lender suits a deal your size →