Sector developments and company hires

EMEA

Eurocastle Investment has appointed Hammad Khan to its board as a non-executive director, increasing its number of directors to six. Khan is a representative of Eurocastle’s largest shareholder, an affiliate of EJF Capital, where he is a senior md and a senior member of the EJF Investments Manager investment team. He joined EJF in March 2013 and is responsible for identifying investment opportunities in the European markets, with a focus on the banking, insurance and specialty finance sectors. He previously worked at Oak Circle Capital in New York as a credit analyst, analysing opportunities within the US RMBS and CMBS sectors.

Global promotions

Weil, Gotshal & Manges has elected 11 new partners and 10 new counsel to start their positions on 1 January 2019. The new partners and counsel are based in the firm’s Frankfurt, London, New York and Silicon Valley offices and include: Shawn Kodes, structured finance partner in New York and previous corporate finance attorney; and Alexander Martin, structured finance partner in London and previously associate at the firm.

Investment strategy launched

Investcorp has launched its strategic capital partners strategy which will focus on minority equity investments in mid-sized alternative asset managers. Anthony Maniscalco has been hired to lead the strategic capital partners business, former md and co-head of Credit Suisse's Anteil Capital Partners business. Investcorp's strategic capital partners business will acquire minority equity stakes in the general partners of established alternative asset managers, including private equity, private debt, real estate, venture capital and hedge fund managers.

Partnerships

Twelve Capital has partnered with Harrington Cooper to distribute its investment products within the UK and in French-speaking Europe. The partnership aims to bring specialised capabilities to a wider group of investors in the region.

SLABS sale knocked

A new UK House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts report finds that the government “received too little” in return for its sale in 2017 of student loans via the Income Contingent Student Loans 1 securitisation. The report notes that loans with a face value of £3.5bn were sold for £1.7bn, equating to a return of only 48p in the £1. While the committee states that it did not expect the government to recover the face value of the loans, as repayments rely on borrowers’ earnings, its own analysis shows that it could have expected to recoup the £1.7bn sale price in only eight years. It adds that the UK Treasury’s willingness to accept offers from investors if they exceed its theoretical opportunity cost of holding the assets “runs the risk of accepting too low a price” and that the government has not convinced the committee that its model of future cashflows provides a good basis for deciding at what price to sell student loans.

US

AE Industrial Partners has hired Marc Baliotti as senior md. Baliotti previously held a role as md at GSO capital partners, Blackstone.

Vista Equity Partners has expanded its credit platform, Vista Credit Partners (VCP), formerly Vista Credit Opportunities, with the appointment of David Flannery as president of VCP. Flannery will advance Vista’s growing credit strategy and extend its capabilities in the alternative corporate credit markets. Flannery joins VCP after having previously held a position as senior md of GSO Capital Partners.