Sector developments and company hires

Sixth Street has announced the formation of a dedicated structured products business to further enhance its capabilities as a strategic capital partner and solutions provider at scale. Sixth Street structured products builds upon the firm’s existing expertise and will focus on asset and platform investing and origination across finance markets, including commercial and residential mortgages, renewables and energy finance, consumer asset classes, infrastructure debt, transportation and commercial equipment. Michael Dryden, an experienced leader of one of the largest structured finance businesses in financial services, has joined Sixth Street as a partner to lead the expansion. Dryden will be based in New York. Prior to joining Sixth Street, he was global head of securitised products finance at Credit Suisse.

In other news…

EMEA

Crestbridge has appointed a new director of corporate and capital markets as it works to enhance its corporate services business. Luke Hamill will take on the new role in the firm’s London office, and follows the hire of new group head, Martin Lambert, earlier this year. In the new role, Hamill will be responsible for furthering the Crestbridge capital markets proposition. With more than twenty years of experience working in international real estate, Hamill joins Crestbridge from the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, where he spent six years managing US$10bn of debt capital markets activity across Europe and Asia.

Moody’s has appointed Annabel Schaafsma as global head of the structured finance ratings group, effective from 19 April. Currently md and global head of methodology development at the rating agency, Schaafsma brings over two decades of credit expertise in structured finance to her new role. As well as Moody’s, she has worked at Standard Chartered, Credit Suisse and SG Warburg. Schaafsma replaces Jim Ahern, who will transition to a new role after more than five years of leading the group.

North America

MidOcean Partners has announced that Joseph Rotondo, senior portfolio manager for Invesco’s Global Senior Loan group, will be joining the firm as senior portfolio manager for MidOcean Credit’s CLO business. As senior portfolio manager, Rotondo will be responsible for portfolio management of the firm’s existing CLOs as well as new transactions MidOcean expects to issue as it continues to build out its CLO platform. He will also serve as a member of the firm’s Investment Committee. Based in New York, Rotondo will report to Dana Carey, chief investment officer of MidOcean Credit.