GSO/Blackstone, part of the credit platform of Blackstone, has priced the initial public offering of Blackstone/GSO Strategic Credit Fund.

The fund’s primary investment objective is to seek high current income, with a secondary objective to seek preservation of capital, consistent with its primary goal of high current income.

The fund began trading on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) today under the symbol BGB.

The fund raised USD834.8m in its common share offering, or USD960m assuming the full exercise of the underwriters’ overallotment option, which may or may not occur. GSO/Blackstone Debt Funds Management, a subsidiary of Blackstone, is the fund’s investment adviser.

This is GSO/Blackstone’s third closed-end fund; the other funds managed by the team trade under the tickers BSL and BGX. The lead managers of the common share underwriting syndicate were Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, BofA Merrill Lynch, UBS Investment Bank, and Wells Fargo Securities.

“The Blackstone/GSO Strategic Credit Fund represents the third addition to our family of closed-end funds focused on the leveraged finance asset class. GSO/Blackstone continues to be a strong believer in the long-term opportunity in below investment grade corporate credit. We are excited to put our organisation’s considerable resources and skills in this asset class to work on behalf of the investors in this fund," says Dan Smith (pictured), senior managing director at Blackstone.