LCM hires Deutsche Bank CLO vet

The CLO management unit of TFG Asset Management has tapped an old CLO hand to lead the firm's global development efforts. TFG's LCM Asset Management announced Monday (1 August) that it has hired former Deutsche Bank managing director Chris D'Auria, who helped run his former employer's CLO department..

“In today's world of constant market uncertainty, the lending space, in my view, continues to offer investors attractive opportunities that provide stable cash flows and shelter from economic volatility,” LCM senior portfolio manager Farboud Tavangar said in the statement.

LCM and Deutsche Bank representatives declined to provide further detail.

D'Auria began his career at Deutsche Bank as a modeler on the CLO team and eventually became a managing director and co-head of the bank's global CLO business, based in New York. In this role, D'Auria worked closely with LCM and other managers on bringing CLOs to market and designing strategies for risk retention compliance, according to the statement.

A market source tells PDI that D'Auria's former fellow co-head, London-based Francis McCullough, will assume control of both the US and Europe as head of the CLO business at Deutsche Bank.

“As increasing regulation continues to change the CLO investing landscape, now is a very exciting time to be working in the business, and I am honored to join one of the space's leading players,” D'Auria said in the statement.

The looming 24 December imposition of a risk retention regulation requiring mangers to hold five percent interest in the credit risk of securitized assets is likely to have played a role in spurring otherrecentpersonnel moves in the space. On Carlyle's earnings call last week, co-chief executive Bill Conway said the introduction of risk retention requirements is likely to drive consolidation that will benefit large firms in the industry.

LCM is the New York-based CLO managing unit of TFG Asset Management, the alternative asset management business of Tetragon Financial Group. LCM was established in 2001, focuses on US senior secured leveraged loans and has more than $6 billion in assets under management.

Tetragon Asset Management has approximately $18 billion in AUM  and pursues investments across bank loans, real estate, equities, credit, convertible bonds and infrastructure.