T. Rowe Price is in the “early stages” of opening up a private credit fund to retail investors, its chief executive has said.

The investment firm launched a private credit fund, dubbed OCREDIT, last October, and is now starting to offer it to wealth management clients.

Private debt is traditionally the preserve of institutional investors such as pension funds, insurers and sovereign wealth funds, but asset managers have been making efforts to expand into the retail market to scale up.

Apollo Global Management’s managing director Veronique Fournier has said that the firm is “well on track” to raise $50bn (£39.8bn) from the wealth market for its private capital products by 2026.

On a fourth-quarter earnings call, reported on by Bloomberg, T. Rowe Price’s chief executive Rob Sharps outlined the firm’s ambitions to target the retail market. However, he highlighted that “it’s a very competitive market for private credit in the wealth channel”, adding that the credit market has “made it difficult to differentiate on performance”.

T. Rowe Price acquired Oak Hill Advisors in 2021 to expand into alternative assets. The alternative credit specialist has $63bn of assets under management and invests globally.

Read more: Private debt funds: Wealth whispers

Its private credit fund OCREDIT launched with $1.5bn (£1.2bn), including $600m in equity from T. Rowe Price and institutional investors.

The fund invests in mainly senior secured, privately originated loans to larger companies located predominantly in North America.

It put the fund on the iCapital Marketplace in December last year, making it available to financial advisers.