Australia's best private credit funds revealed
La Trobe Financial Asset Management has been named Money's Best Private Credit Funds - Mortgages as part of the 2026 Best of the Best awards.
- Find out how we chose the winners
- Order your copy of the bumper awards issue
- Check out more from Best of the Best 2026
Investors prize consistency. And, as the winner of this award every year since 2010, it is hard to think of a more consistent performer than La Trobe Financial. This year winning with its La Trobe Australian Credit Fund - 12 Month Term Account.
La Trobe Financial has been active in private a for more than 70 years and in 1989 launched investments for retail investors. Some 36 years later, it has continued to steward investor capital by providing durable, low-volatility income for retirees and pre-retiree investors.
Chris Paton, chief investment officer at La Trobe Financial says, "Our longevity and proven track record allows investors to invest with confidence. We have delivered consistent monthly income for investors from a portfolio carefully constructed to deliver across the cycle. Our products are backed by high-quality granular assets within diversified portfolios, from a manager with a commitment to transparency and best-in-market liquidity disciplines.
"We have demonstrated our experience as careful stewards of investors' capital, building out market leading liquidity management, disclosures and transparency frameworks. Our hard-wired conservatism to managing investor capital has seen us thrive through a range of real-world challenges."
In addition to length of time in the market, Paton says La Trobe Financial stands out for its "human-centric approach and unwavering commitment to transparency. We are driven by people and purpose to deliver for our investors."
How we found the best managed funds and ETFs
Rainmaker's managed funds and exchange traded funds awards consider a variety of factors to determine winners and finalists.
While overall medium term (five-year) performance is important, it is only one factor among many. Our quantitative process also considers investment risk, in the form of volatility (standard deviation) and downside volatility (the variability of negative returns generated by the fund). Accounting for a fund's risk is critically important, because it would be naive to simply award funds with the highest returns if they had also subjected investors to the highest risks.
To further improve our performance insights, we also examined performance persistence (or consistency) relative to the peer group using annual performance in each of the preceding five years.
In other words, performance persistence is more interested in rewarding investment providers that have a time series of annual returns that are competitive against the peer group, rather than just a higher average return for the period.
Finally, in some asset classes such as shares, an adjustment is made depending on whether a product has shown a persistent bias to style factors, such as value, growth and small-caps.
The best managers are chosen for having the most products shortlisted in most categories. The products are ranked in each category, and this ranking determines the number of points given to each product. The manager with the most points determines the winner.
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