Oaktree Capital Group LLC, the world’s largest distressed-debt investor, is telling clients it’s targeting the lowest returns it’s ever sought, according to Chairman Howard Marks.

“In the distressed strategies, like distressed debt and real estate, we’re aiming to make 15 percent gross,” Marks said Tuesday at the Goldman Sachs Financial Services Conference in New York. “The irony is of course that today 15 percent sounds like some herculean task. It’s the lowest yield we’ve ever targeted.”

Oaktree’s latest flagship distressed-debt fund, which began investing in 2009, had a 13.6 percent gross internal rate of return as of Sept. 30, according to the firm’s quarterly earnings report. Predecessors of the pool have returned as much as 35 percent, the report shows.