Sector developments and company hires

CLO control equity fund closed
Lakemore Partners has successfully closed Aquatine IV at US$400m, due to strong investor demand. Aquatine IV is Lakemore’s fourth CLO fund within the Aquatine platform, which invests in control equity positions in US CLOs. Investors in the fund comprise a diverse group of institutional investors, representing private banks, fund of funds, insurance companies, family offices and high net-worth individuals, many of whom have invested in previous Lakemore Aquatine funds.

EMEA
Privatam has strengthened its investment solutions team with the recruitment of Jose Carlos Reis as sales director for the Latin American market, based in the firm’s Monaco office. Prior to joining Privatam, Reis was executive director, head of institutional sales at BB Securities Asia (Banco do Brasil group) in Singapore. Before that, he held various positions at Banco BPI in Portugal, leading institutional sales teams, structuring investment solutions and trading derivatives, Latam fixed income and equities.

North America
Tim Groves has joined Dwight Capital as an md, based in New York. He was previously senior md and head of Cantor Commercial Real Estate (CCRE), Cantor’s direct lending and primary CMBS business, which he joined in June 2018. Before that, Groves worked at Citi and RSSM.

Ervin Pilku has joined East West Bank as md, debt capital markets and trading in New York. He will focus on ABS and high yield syndication, alongside setting up the bank’s secondary trading operations targeting CLOs and ABS.

Pilku has extensive CLO trading experience dating back to 2007. Most recently he was svp, CLO trading at Odeon Capital, having previously served as md, CLO trading at Guggenheim Partners and md, CLO trading at Cantor Fitzgerald.