“Most influential” Castledine moves to Bfinance

Bfinance, the London-based investment consultancy, has appointed Trevor Castledine as senior director, private markets. He replaces Niels Bodenheim, who recently vacated the role after three and a half years to become head of alternative credit at NN Investment Partners, the Netherlands-based asset manager.

Castledine, who has more than 25 years’ experience in financial services, pensions and investments, was formerly deputy chief investment officer at Lancashire County Pension Fund and subsequently deputy chief investment officer and private credit investment director at the Local Pensions Partnership.

At Lancashire, Castledine oversaw a £6 billion asset pool and became a big-ticket investor in the larger deal market. At LPP – a joint venture between the Lancashire and London Pension Funds – he became more inclined to back smaller deals having seen how well many of them performed through the crisis.

A strong advocate of fair fee structures, Castledine heavily criticised performance fees in a Private Debt Investor roundtable in June last year. He said: “My problem is that they’re still largely based on a fixed hurdle, whereas, almost exclusively, the underlying positions are floating rate. We shouldn’t be paying performance fees to people just because the Bank of England raised interest rates. It’s not right. It’s just a free lottery ticket for the managers.”

His influence on the asset class led to his inclusion in PDI’s list of the 30 Most Influential individuals in private debt towards the end of 2018. Other LPs on the list included the likes of Frank Barbarino of the Office of New York City Comptroller, Jan Dong-hun of Korea’s Public Officials Benefit Association and Marcus Frampton of the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation.

In his new role, Castledine will report to Peter Hobbs, managing director and head of private markets at Bfinance. Hobbs said: “We are delighted to have Trevor join the team, bringing extensive experience in private markets including private credit, private equity and real estate, as well as his deep understanding of the needs of pension funds thanks to his LGPS [Local Government Pension Scheme] background.”

Bfinance has increased the number of directors in its private markets team from two in January 2018 to five currently. As well as Hobbs and Castledine, the team also includes Anish Butani, Sweta Chattopadhyay and Thibault Sandret.