TCP adds legal-minded MD

Tennenbaum Capital Partners (TCP) has added to its distressed debt brain trust with the hire of a former bankruptcy attorney.

TCP announced Wednesday (7 September) that Mark Kronfeld (pictured) has joined the firm as a managing director. He has already begun work in the firm’s New York office where he focuses on direct lending in special situations and managing TCP’s investments in companies undergoing restructurings and bankruptcies, according to Kronfeld’s LinkedIn profile.

“Mark brings significant experience in special situations and distressed investing, with particular expertise in analysing complex legal and structural investing issues,” TCP managing partner Howard Lefkowitz said in the statement. TCP’s vice president of investor relations, Jessica Ekeberg added in an email to PDI Kronfeld will enhance TCP’s existing team.

Prior to joining TCP, Kronfeld served as partner at Plymouth Lane Capital Management, where he focused on investor activism and the legal issues related to the firm’s distressed and special situations strategy. Previously, he was a managing director at Owl Creek Asset Management and BlueMountain Capital.

Before beginning his career in finance, Kronfeld spent 10 years as a litigator and bankruptcy lawyer, according to the announcement.  His LinkedIn profile showed that includes three years as a senior associate in the financial restructuring department of Gibbons PC, where he advised clients in chapter 7 and chapter 11 bankruptcies.

Kronfeld is also an adjunct professor at Boston University School of Law, a member of the American Bankruptcy Institute and an independent director of Reorg Research, a distressed debt-focused news outlet and research firm.

“I use my background as an ex-litigator and an ex-bankruptcy lawyer to find mispricing in particular situations that are driven by complex legal issues that are not widely understood,” Kronfeld told NYU earlier this year according to valuewalk.com. “One has to understand the interplay between investment analysis and legal analysis. In the world of distressed investing, they are inextricably interwoven,” he added.

TCP is a mid-market focused alternative asset management firm specializing in direct lending and special situations.  Founded in 1996, the firm has invested more than $16.5 billion in more than 450 companies. Headquartered in Los Angeles with offices in New York and San Francisco, TCP maintains private funds, separate accounts, and a BDC, TCP Capital Corp.