Neuberger Berman Adds Private Placement Credit Team

Neuberger Berman has added five people to its bond platform which will focus on the private placement credit markets.

The appointed fund manager Frank LaTorraca, Philip Lee, Nicole Tullo, Lori Cuneo and Chuck Devereux to its new private placement credit markets team, according to a press release Tuesday.

All positions are new and the team will be based in New York and Philadelphia, spokesman Alexander Samuelson said in an email. Mr. LaTorraca will serve as head of private placement, Ms. Cuneo and Mr. Devereux will serve as managing directors, while Ms. Tullo and Mr. Lee will serve as senior vice president, Samuelson said. Mr. LaTorraca reports to Ken deregt, COO-Fixed Income, but will work closely with Matthieu malloy, responsible for the overall institutional solution and responsible for the insurance solution, he added.

The team is expected to be “fully operational” by early 2022, the statement said.

Mr. LaTorraca, Mr. Lee and Ms. Tullo were previously at Macquarie Investment Management, where Mr. LaTorraca was managing director and co-head of private placements, the statement said, adding that Mr. Lee and Ms. Tullo also bring “extensive experience of Private Equity At Macquarie, Mr. Lee was Vice President of Private Equity and Ms. Tullo was Senior Vice President of Private Equity, Mr. Samuelson.

Ms. Cuneo was previously Managing Director and Global Head of Private Placement Debt at JP Morgan, where she spent more than 20 years researching, structuring and distributing private placements.

Ms. Cuneo and Mr. LaTorraca will focus on “client research and portfolio management” at Neuberger Berman, the statement said.

Mr. Devereux is from T. Rowe Price Group where he served as Vice President and High Yield Credit Analyst, and he will lead Neuberger Berman’s private placement research efforts.

The five-member team will be “fully integrated” into Neuberger Berman’s $ 201 billion bond platform, “leveraging the company’s vast research, risk and operating resources,” the statement said. .

Neuberger Berman noted in the statement that $ 57 billion of the company’s 437 billion in assets under management as of September 30 was tied to 200 insurance company clients, explaining that globally, the class of Private placement assets have been “historically dominated” by insurance companies. Neuberger Berman added that “this new team’s long-standing relationships in the industry and market leadership, built over two decades, will benefit customers.”

Brad Tank, Managing Director, Chief Investment Officer and Global Head of Fixed Income at Neuberger Berman, said in the press release that “the addition of private placement credit to our global fixed income platform strengthens our goal of creating the best customizable portfolios in the industry, using both public and private markets.

Jason Pratt, Senior Portfolio Manager and Head of Insurance Fixed Income, added that “Demand for the asset class continues to grow in light of persistently low yielding opportunities and the desire of insurers and other investors. institutions to obtain high quality credit exposure and diversification. with higher total efficiency characteristics. In addition to insurance companies, we believe there will be a wider demand from the institutional market.