Tyndall Asset Management's (Tyndall AM) newly-acquired alternative asset team is planning to launch a senior secured loan fund in October.

The investment manager is still finalising the fund structure, which will include an Australia-domiciled fund and an international structure, potentially under a UCITS format.

Earlier this year, Tyndall acquired Causeway Asset Management, after Causeway co-founder Mike Davis became Tyndall's managing director in April.

The Causeway team joined Tyndall six weeks ago and have been talking to institutional investors to gauge interest.

"We believe there are structural imbalances in most western democracies in their banking systems," Tyndall AM head of alternative assets Tim Martin said.

"In Australia that is exacerbated by the four pillars, so the space [our fund] operates in I would call fifth-pillar finance, which is basically the growth of non-regulated pools of capital."

Martin said the global credit squeeze was exacerbated in Australia by the strong reliance of domestic banks on international credit markets for their funding, the exit of European banks and the impact of the various Basel requirements on capital reserves.

This had restricted the ability of banks to lend money, he said.

"The growth sector in the Australian economy [for senior secured loan providers] is that middle-market space. That is the place where the banks are particularly challenged," he said.