MidOcean Partners Announces Formation of Credit Team
New York, June 26, 2009 - MidOcean Partners, a leading middle market private equity firm, announced that Steve Shenfeld has joined the firm as President of its newly formed MidOcean Credit Partners unit, where he will be responsible for building out a credit investment platform focused on middle market opportunities.
Prior to joining MidOcean, Mr. Shenfeld managed a private equity fund for MD Sass, a $6 billion investment management organization, and previously was a General Partner with Avenue Capital Group LLC where he invested in a range of high yield and distressed debt strategies. Mr. Shenfeld has also worked at BancBoston Robertson Stephens as a Managing Director and Group Head for High Yield Capital Markets and Trading and was a Partner at Bankers Trust where he worked with Ted Virtue, MidOcean’s CEO, and several other members of the MidOcean team.
“I’m excited to rejoin Ted Virtue and my other longtime colleagues at MidOcean, with whom I successfully worked in the past to build a leading credit platform”, commented Mr. Shenfeld, “particularly at a time of unprecedented market opportunity. The synergies generated by our shared focus on fundamental investing, deep network of middle market and industry contacts and enhanced information flow make this a perfect fit.”
Joining Mr Shenfeld at MidOcean are Mike Apfel, Managing Director and Jim Wiant, Principal, who previously worked together at Deerfield Capital where they were responsible for building and managing Deerfield’s middle market debt business. Mr. Apfel has over 18 years of credit market experience and previously worked with Mr. Virtue at Bankers Trust. Mr. Apfel also worked at Bank of America and Chemical Bank.
Also joining the MidOcean team is Scott O’Callaghan, Managing Director, who previously worked with Messrs. Virtue and Shenfeld at Bankers Trust and most recently was Global Head of Leveraged Sales at Bank of America. Mr. O’Callaghan has 20 years of wide-ranging experience in credit markets including senior positions at Drexel Burnham Lambert, Bankers Trust and Deutsche Bank.
“We believe that the dislocation in the credit markets will continue to bring great opportunities to deliver strong risk-adjusted returns to our investors. I am delighted to partner with this world class team of debt professionals on this initiative. I have had a long relationship with Steve and his team and hold each of them in such high regard,” commented Ted Virtue, MidOcean’s CEO. Mr. Virtue continued, “Information flow is the key to successful investing and by leveraging MidOcean‘s focused relationships in the middle market, this should be a very complementary network for our investors.”
