Cheyne hires two for strategic value credit strategy

Cheyne Capital Management has appointed two professionals to complete its Strategic Value Credit (SVC) team.

Richard Cazenove and Franck Laval have both joined SVC, which will focus on investing in sub-investment grade corporate credit, bringing the total team to ten personnel.

Cazenove joins the firm as a partner and senior portfolio manager from BlueBay Asset Management, where he spent 15 years in portfolio management across distressed and opportunistic credit strategies.

Laval joined Cheyne earlier this year from Oaktree Capital Management. He spent 11 years at Oaktree as a senior member of its distressed debt team in London working on special situations including corporate workouts, rescue financing and re-organisations.

SVC was created by Cheyne initially to take advantage of a structural opportunity caused by European banks deleveraging and selling legacy and non-core corporate loan exposures. It acquires debt from stressed but performing mid-market businesses with a target transaction size between €10 million and €50 million.

Cheyne said it has seen an increase in the number and quality of opportunities presented by banks recently with attractive valuation entry points for first-lien loans.

Anthony Robertson, CIO of SVC, said: “The opportunity set which SVC aims to focus on first is the fourth clear dislocation in European corporate debt we have identified since the global financial crisis.

“With crowded positioning in large-cap situations and unattractive valuations in mainstream sub-investment grade credit markets, we believe there is currently a specific opportunity in stressed, but performing, mid-market corporate loans.”