Christopher Bogart, CEO, Burford Capital.

U.K.-listed litigation funder Burford Capital has raised a $300 million fund to offer law firms and clients financing solutions after a settlement has been reached.

The fund offers early payment options to law firms that are waiting on payment of fees from their clients after a settlement has been agreed to in a case, or by the clients themselves who wish to expedite the payout of their settlement.

Burford CEO Christopher Bogart said in a statement that the fund is intended to “help clients manage the frequent and significant delays that occur between the point at which parties agree to a settlement and the finalisation of and payment under the settlement.”

According to a Burford representative, the capital will be used to finance large commercial disputes and potentially transactional corporate work, and will be available to U.K. firms.

The fund was raised from a “variety of institutional investors,” according to Burford, and takes its total funds under management to $2.7 billion.

In a Burford annual report describing the funder's first postsettlement offering, the company says “the strategy is not especially remunerative for Burford given the significantly lower returns,” but that the company values the strategy “not so much for its cash income but for its expansion of our offering to clients.”

The new fund is Burford's second postsettlement fund. The first, launched in 2014, which raised $296.1 million in total, was slated to wrap up this September.

Burford announced a 23 percent increase in operating profit to $354 million in 2018, and with the new fund has increased its total funds under management by $1 billion since the beginning of last year.

The funder claims to be a financing partner to 90 percent of the Am Law 100.