PGIM names Frankfurt-based head for DACH direct lending

The $1.5tn asset manager has named Robert Scheer head of direct lending for the DACH region, a Frankfurt-based operator who will now run sponsor-led deals across Germany, Austria and Switzerland and report to Matthew Harvey, global head of middle market direct lending, with a remit that runs from origination through underwriting. The appointment extends a build-out that began with PGIM's Deerpath Capital acquisition two decades ago, a platform that now manages $16bn and that PGIM took full control of in August, as this publication reported in its consolidation coverage.

Harvey calls the DACH region 'one of the most compelling opportunities in European direct lending,' citing a deep base of family and sponsor-owned businesses, and Scheer is a direct match. He joins from M&G Investments, where he was co-head of private credit origination and led sponsor-led mid-market activity and cross-border deal teams across London, Frankfurt and Amsterdam. Before that, he ran M&G's own DACH direct lending operation, a market he is returning to rather than learning from a distance.

European direct lending volume has sagged through 2026, pushing managers to fund existing books through CLO resets and static structures rather than aggressive new origination. Yet the DACH region still offers the deep base of family and sponsor-owned businesses that Harvey describes, a borrower profile that fits relationship-driven direct lending and suggests PGIM sees enough local deal flow to justify a regional origination platform when volume elsewhere is thin.

The move also changes M&G's bench: Scheer's exit removes one of the senior figures running the cross-border sponsor finance effort across three European cities, and the announcement does not say who will absorb his duties. How M&G backfills the role will determine whether the loss becomes a real gap in continental Europe.

With credit consolidation accelerating across the sector, PGIM is paying for a local origination platform, and Scheer now has to show the DACH deal pool can generate enough transactions to cover the Frankfurt office.