ORIX made two senior appointments within its asset management business, naming Jeff Abrams chief investment officer of asset management, while Timothy Loughlin joined the firm as managing director in the special opportunities group, responsible for asset-based lending. Abrams is based in New York and continues to report to Art Mbanefo, chief investment officer of ORIX and Loughlin reports to Ravi Singh, head of the special opportunities group.
“Over the last few years, we have made great strides towards our goal of being a preeminent investing and financing partner to the middle-market, thoughtfully deploying our balance sheet alongside third party investors seeking access to attractive alternative investments. As our client base and third-party capital raising and partnership opportunities grow, these impressive leaders will enable us to further build on our successes to date,” Mbanefo said.
Abrams is a managing director and joined the firm in September 2020 as chief investment officer for private credit. In this new role, he will oversee ORIX’s asset management capabilities across the growth capital, municipal and infrastructure, special opportunities credit teams as well as those of Signal Peak Capital, a leveraged credit business, and NXT Capital, a middle-market direct lending business. Prior to joining ORIX, Abrams was head of investing & lending solutions at Barclays International, where he was responsible for originating, underwriting and executing transactions in direct lending and opportunistic credit. He also spent fifteen years at Guggenheim Partners and was senior managing director and co-head of the corporate credit group. Abrams is a member of ORIX’s management committee.
Loughlin has more than 30 years of experience in asset-based lending and joined the firm in October 2021. He was most recently co-founder of Newgate Capital Holdings, a commercial finance and consulting and advisory company focused on consumer, commercial and real estate markets. He previously co-founded CapFlow Funding, a private commercial lending platform. He also spent fourteen years at Merrill Lynch as a managing director in the global asset-based finance group, including five years in London as the head of global asset-based finance for Europe. At ORIX USA he is focused on building out the firm’s capabilities in asset-based finance and works with teams across asset management on transaction origination and execution.
“As investor focus on private credit grows, it is crucial to have leaders with market-cycle tested industry and product knowledge to be able to work with clients and partners on assessing the opportunities as well as delivering and executing inventive solutions across our full product suite,” Mbanefo said. “Jeff, Tim and our asset management team have the expertise and experience that have contributed to our momentum in the U.S. to date, and I look forward to their contributions in their new roles.”
