A weekly breakdown of recent hires and company developments in the structured finance industry.

Acquisitions and investments

Alantra has acquired KPMG UK’s portfolio solutions group business, which specialises in advising financial institutions in relation to non-performing and non-core banking assets globally. The team – which comprises around 70 professionals – will be renamed Alantra Corporate Portfolio Advisory and will be led by managing partners Joel Grau, Andrew Jenke and Nick Colman. Closing of the transaction is expected in early August.

HPS Investment Partners has sold a passive, non-voting minority equity stake to Dyal Capital Partners, with the aim of providing the firm with additional resources to pursue strategic initiatives. The investment will have no impact on the day-to-day management or operations of HPS and the firm's investment and decision-making processes will also remain unchanged. Evercore acted as financial advisor to HPS.

ORIX Corp has signed an agreement to acquire all the outstanding shares of NXT Capital. The acquisition is expected to be completed “in the near future”, pending regulatory approval. In addition to enhancing the competitiveness of ORIX in the US middle market loan sector, the move is expected to strengthen its asset management business through expanded earnings.

Europe

The Carlyle Group has hired Taj Sidhu as md to lead the credit opportunities team in Europe. He is based in London reporting into Alexander Popov and he was previously an md and head of European private credit at Oz Management. The credit opportunities team has also hired Philip Moore as md to the London office. He was previously an md at HPS Investment Partners overseeing European real estate investments.

CVC Credit Partners has hired Mike Anderson as head of investor relations. He was previously in the same role at Pemberton Asset Management Group.

East Lodge Capital has hired Kerry Duffain as head of European distribution, responsible for the oversight and management of investor relationships in the European region and helping cultivate the firm's investor relationships in Australia. Duffain was previously head of distribution for Markham Rae, covering both liquid and illiquid strategies. Before this, she worked at Bluecrest Capital Management, Pioneer Investments, Citigroup Asset Management, JPMorgan Asset Management and State Street Global Advisors. East Lodge is planning to launch a long-only fund focusing on opportunities higher in the capital structure.

ILS

Alan Ball is joining Texel Finance as of next month. He is currently a senior underwriter at Liberty Syndicates.

BTG Pactual Asset Management has hired the team from Lutece Investment Management, including the founders of Lutece, Erik Manning and Angus Ayliffe. The new reinsurance team will be based in Bermuda and will manage the retro opportunities strategy, which invests in the high-yielding retrocessional segment and opens up avenues for possible entry to the ILS market. The acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approval.

Horseshoe Group has hired Jean-Bernard Crozet to the firm as senior vp, advisory services and head of the London office. He was most recently London head of underwriting modelling at MS Amlin.

MBS settlement agreed

RBS has agreed a US$20m settlement with Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan in connection with the bank’s misconduct in its marketing and sale of pre-crisis RMBS. The settlement resolves an investigation over the bank’s failure to disclose the true risk of RMBS investments and proceeds will be distributed among the Teachers Retirement System of the State of Illinois, the State Universities Retirement System of Illinois and the Illinois State Board of Investment, which oversees the State Employees’ Retirement System. The settlement is Illinois’ eighth to address the sale of MBS during the lead-up to the 2008 economic collapse.

MSR sale

HomeStreet Bank has executed a definitive agreement to sell the rights to service approximately US$4.9bn in total unpaid principal balance of single-family mortgage loans serviced for both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, representing approximately 20% of its total single-family mortgage loans serviced for others, as of 31 March 2018. In conjunction with the transaction, the firm also expects to transfer an estimated US$27.2m of related deposit balances to the purchaser, who is believed to be Matrix Financial Services Corp. The physical transfer of servicing is scheduled to be completed by 16 August 2018 and is subject to customary conditions.

North America

CKK Law has hired eleven new attorneys to its New York office. Among these is Justine Clark who focuses on structured finance (including leasing and securitisation), banking and financial instruments, derivatives and international banking and trade finance, representing banks, investment advisors, leasing companies and multinational corporations.

Santander Bank has appointed Brian Schwinn as head of asset-based lending and restructuring finance in its commercial banking division. He is based in Boston and New York, reporting to Robert Rubino, Santander's co-president and head of commercial banking. Schwinn joined the firm as commercial banking's chief credit officer in November 2016, having previously spent 18 years at GE Capital. 

NPL supervisory approach updated

The European Central Bank (ECB) is taking further steps in its supervisory approach for addressing the stock of non-performing loans (NPLs) in the euro area. It creates a consistent framework to address the stock of NPLs as part of the supervisory dialogue through bank-specific supervisory expectations aimed at achieving adequate provisioning of legacy NPLs thereby contributing to the resilience of the euro area banking system as a whole. Under this approach ECB Banking Supervision will further engage with each bank to define its supervisory expectations. The bank-specific supervisory expectations are based on a benchmarking of comparable banks and guided by individual banks’ current NPL ratio and main financial features. The aim is to ensure continued progress to reduce legacy risks in the euro area and achieve the same coverage of the stock and flow of NPLs over the medium term.

RMAC tender extended

Clifden IOM No. 1 has further extended its tender offer for RMAC Securities No. 1 RMBS bonds (SCI passim) to 10 August. The settlement date is now scheduled for 15 August.