Rising Stars 2022: A-H

Kashyap Arora, 39

Managing director and co-chief investment officer, Vibrant Capital Partners

Kashyap Arora oversees sourcing, investment analysis and execution of structured credit investments totalling more than $2 billion. He is portfolio manager of various funds and separately managed accounts across the CLO capital structure including the corporate structured credit fund, Vibrant SENTE Fund.

Arora leads a team of investment professionals and has led the team through multiple credit cycles, including the 2018 market sell-off and 2020 covid-19 crisis. To date, the team has bought and sold structured credit assets totalling more than $15 billion, taking advantage of opportunities amid challenging market environments.

Jordan Bryk, 38

Managing director, Marathon Asset Management

Jordan Bryk has led the expansion of Marathon’s Capital Solutions platform and helped Marathon become a go-to financing partner for complex private credit transactions. Under his leadership, the team has deployed capital across 16 portfolio companies since the depths of covid, with Bryk playing a hands-on role in sourcing, underwriting, structuring and negotiating these deals. Peers say he often leads deal teams across Marathon’s strategies, bringing team members together from different parts of the firm to drive a deal forward. Deals include a refinancing of a digital jukebox business, growth capital to a pharmaceutical business and junior capital to amend the capital structure of an aerospace services company.

Adam Caines, 34

Senior counsel, Macfarlanes

Adam Caines was promoted to senior counsel in 2020 and been identified as an “associate to watch” by Chambers for three years. His credit fund clients identify significant value in using the same counsel for their deployment work and fund finance needs. Caines’ specialism in these fields is a unique selling point, allowing him to assist with both facets of their legal requirements, providing a seamless service for the client’s funding structures and requirements. His work focuses on acquisition finance, warehouse and securitisation transactions, but also investor calls, fund leverage and GP and management company facilities.

Daniele Candela, 34

Director, KKR

Daniele Candela has risen rapidly since joining KKR in 2015, having been promoted to director in 2020. He began his career at KKR investing in private and public markets across the capital structure, with a focus on stressed and distressed opportunities and is now a leading member of KKR’s European credit team. His main responsibilities include sourcing, structuring, negotiating and managing impactful investments for KKR’s Europe Capital Solutions team. His team provides structured, bespoke financing for a range of equity and debt instruments.

Lauren Dieter, 37

Managing director, Prime Finance

Lauren Dieter joined Prime Finance in 2010, shortly after the US firm was founded, initially as an analyst in the asset management group overseeing loan and property performance. After three years she moved into an origination role underwriting and closing senior and subordinate loans on commercial real estate throughout the country.

Since joining, Dieter has progressed to managing director and now leads a team of four loan originators in Chicago. She focuses on investment sourcing, credit and underwriting analysis, due diligence and investment closings and is responsible for having trained and mentored several of the now senior team members.

Nicole Fanjul, 38

Finance partner and co-deputy New York office managing partner, Latham & Watkins

Nicole Fanjul represents lenders and corporate borrowers in complex financing transactions, with a focus on syndicated leveraged finance and direct lending. She is considered a go-to adviser to major players in the space, including HPS Investment Partners and The Carlyle Group. She was lead partner representing the lenders in the largest-ever annual recurring revenue financing, along with a Latham team that represented the providers of a preferred equity financing, to support Zendesk’s $10.2 billion acquisition by an investor group led by global investment firms Permira and Hellman & Friedman.

Alice Foucault, 37

Managing director, Barings

Alice Foucault is a senior member of Barings’ Global Private Finance Group and is responsible for originating, analysing, structuring and monitoring European private finance investments. She joined Barings in 2014 to lead the firm’s origination efforts in France. Foucault has successfully built relationships with key private equity sponsors in a region with high barriers to entry, executing over 70 transactions, deploying €5.3 billion since she joined – resulting in Barings being one of the top three direct lenders in France – and is regarded by her peers as a proven innovator.

Jacob Gladstone, 34

Managing director, distressed and corporate special situations, Angelo Gordon

Jacob Gladstone has earned a reputation for his ability to lead highly complex transactions across both private and public markets. In his role at Angelo Gordon, he leads investments within the consumer, industrial, automotive and financial sectors. On the investment front, two of his notable contributions at Angelo Gordon include leading the $275 million privately structured investment in Tupperware and building out AG’s collateralised bond obligation platform, AG CC Funding, which has issued two CBOs. In his dealings, peers say Gladstone has proved himself a constructive partner to companies looking to address complex capital situations.

William Grout, 38

Managing director, Ares Management

William Grout joined Ares in 2011, helping to build one of Europe’s largest direct lending platforms through strong relationship networks and deep investment experience across the capital structure. Over his tenure, Grout has backed more than 40 different private credit borrowers providing over €7 billion of capital into the European mid-market. Having completed sponsor-led, corporate and public-to-private transactions, he brings wide experience both as an investor and board member for a number of portfolio investments.

As a deal lead, he has added a number of new sponsor relationships to the platform and helped build credibility and goodwill with sponsors and management teams. His sector experience spans TMT, financial services and business services.

Kenneth Hackman, 39

Partner, Dechert

For nearly a decade, Kenneth Hackman has helped drive the development of the single-family rental (SFR) market as a robust and viable asset class. His leadership in his field, and repeated achievements on behalf of a broad range of borrowers and lenders, has seen Dechert outperform peer firms and grab a large majority of single-family residential commercial mortgage-backed securities deals.

Dechert acted as issuer’s counsel on nine SFR deals in H1 2022, according to Asset-Backed Alert; the nearest challenger acted on just two. Dechert also ranked as top issuer’s counsel for SFR in 2021, a record year for SFR securitisations, acting on 17 deals valued at $10.5 billion. Hackman led on much of that total.

Meaghan Haugh, 27

Vice-president, Atalaya Capital Management

Meaghan Haugh, a member of Atalaya’s Corporate and Opportunistic Investments team, joined the firm as a summer intern and, upon returning full time, has grown into a senior leader despite being only 27. She is responsible for sourcing, underwriting and managing various investments across the capital structure and asset classes. She is also a leading voice in the credit secondaries arena, a newly emerging asset class.

She serves in many ways as a face of the firm to Atalaya’s investors and corresponds directly with many of the firm’s strategic relationships. It’s rare at her age to take a leading role on new investments, but peers say Haugh has executed a variety of them with limited oversight.

David Healey, 32

Vice-president, Bain Capital Credit

Since joining Bain Capital Credit in 2018, David Healey has been an integral member of the private credit group and played a key role in finding direct lending opportunities across the capital structure to companies globally with EBITDA between $10 million to $150 million.

He is perhaps most notable for his leadership in starting the annual recurring revenue funding initiative, which is now the largest segment of the private credit group, with originations in software technology up from $250 million in 2021 to $500 million as of August 2022. Healey gained experience with software technology because software’s revenue models and position in the 21st century economy made those companies ideal credit assets.