Vanden Beukel leaves GSC Group

Senior managing director Christine Vanden Beukel has ended a 10-year career leading GSC’s European mezzanine business. Her role is now filled in part by managing director Nick Petrusic, who joined the credit-focused alternative asset manager in 2000.

Christine Vanden Beukel has resigned as a senior managing director in GSC Group’s London office, according to sources familiar with the matter.

She joined the credit-focused alternative asset manager when it spun out from Travelers Group in 1999, and has led the firm’s European mezzanine lending and collateralised corporate debt activities. She’d previously worked for Greenwich Street Capital Partners, GSC’s predecessor under the Travelers umbrella, since its 1994 founding.

Christine
Vanden Beukel

Vanden Beukel’s rationale for the resignation, as well any future professional plans, could not be determined by press time. Vanden Beukal declined to comment as did a New York-based GSC managing director.

Nicholas Petrusic, who joined GSC in 2000 after 22 years with National Westminster Bank, is now listed on the firm’s website as managing director of European mezzanine investments. Seth Kattzenstein, a 10-year GSC veteran listed online as managing director of US corporate debt, is also understood to be filling the void left by Vanden Beukel.

The firm’s most recent activities include the $1.3 billion acquisition of TCW portfolio company Complete Energy Holdings. The deal was done in May 2008 by GSC Acquisition, a GSC-affiliated special purpose acquisition company.

In July 2007 it closed its fifth European collateralised debt obligation fund on €300 million, while in January 2007 GSC closed its third control-oriented distressed debt fund on $530 million.