Ares Management announced the appointment of Jeffrey Kramer as a portfolio manager in the firm’s Capital Markets Group, where he will lead a tactical expansion of Ares’ structured credit business to include a broad range of consumer and commercial specialty finance related assets. Kramer will be responsible for the origination and management of investments under this asset-backed investing and lending strategy.

“We are excited to welcome Jeff to the team,” said Greg Margolies, global head of the Capital Markets Group at Ares Management. “He brings a wealth of knowledge and asset investing experience that is complementary to our existing structured products platform and further enables us to identify attractive opportunities for our investors.”

“To be able to join such a well-respected and broad platform and to help our clients realize their long-term investment objectives is a rare opportunity,” said Kramer. “I am also excited to be able to work with companies and sponsors who rely on Ares to access other types of capital as they grow their businesses.”

Kramer brings 26 years of experience in structured finance, specialty lending and asset securitization. He joins Ares from Goldman Sachs’ Special Situations Group. In 2005, Kramer founded ReMark Capital Group, a buyer and lender of consumer finance assets, in partnership with Goldman Sachs. ReMark was fully integrated into Goldman Sachs in 2009.

Prior to Goldman, he served as executive director in the Global Financial Markets division as a group head of the Securitization and Structured Credit unit of WestLB AG. Prior to joining WestLB, he served in the structured finance and capital markets groups at Rothschild and Nomura Securities and also as a vice president in the Asset Finance Group at Financial Security Assurance (now Assured Guaranty).