BLACKSTONE GROUP LP 
By (Reuters) - Blackstone Group LP (>> The Blackstone Group L.P.), the largest publicly listed alternative asset manager, said on Wednesday that it had raised up to $960 million for its third publicly listed mutual fund to invest in corporate credit whose quality is below investment grade.
Diversified alternative asset managers take money from large institutional investors, such as pension plans and sovereign wealth funds, to invest in a range of credit products, from high-yield bonds to senior loans.
Launching mutual funds allows asset managers to pocket more fees from much larger swathes of the investment community through up-and-running platforms. Blackstone's credit businesses had $50.5 billion of assets under management at the end of June.
The new fund, dubbed Blackstone/GSO Strategic Credit Fund
The fund's primary objective is to seek high current income, with a secondary goal of preserving capital, Blackstone added.
Blackstone has two more closed-end mutual funds that are publicly listed - the Blackstone/GSO Long-Short Credit Income Fund
Competitor Apollo Global Management LLC (>> Apollo Global Management LLC) also runs a closed-end listed fund, the Apollo Senior Floating Rate Fund (>> Apollo Senior Floating Rate Fund Inc). In July, KKR & Co LP (>> KKR & Co. L.P.) submitted regulatory filings to market two mutual funds that will invest in credit products, playing catch-up with Blackstone and Apollo.
Morgan Stanley (>> Morgan Stanley), Citigroup Inc (>> Citigroup Inc.), Bank of America Merrill Lynch (>> Bank of America Corp), UBS Investment Bank (>> UBS AG) and Wells Fargo Securities (>> Wells Fargo & Company) were lead managers of the common share underwriting syndicate for Blackstone/GSO Strategic Credit Fund.
(Reporting by Greg Roumeliotis in New York)
