Chris Andrews, the chief executive of La Trobe Financial, knows labels can be funny things. Not so long ago, La Trobe used to be known as a mortgage fund. These days the firm, which has $20 billion in assets under management, is best known as a real estate private credit business.

Indeed, as Andrews told the Financial Review’s Business Summit on Wednesday, La Trobe’s 73-year history arguably makes it “maybe the most storied private credit manager in Australia”.