Alcentra, an alternative fixed income specialist for BNY Mellon Investment Management, expanded its U.S. Direct Lending team with the appointments of Suhail A. Shaikh and Peter M. Glaser as managing directors and co-heads of U.S. Direct Lending.
Both Shaikh and Glaser will report to Vijay Rajguru, global co-chief investment officer.
Based in New York, Shaikh and Glaser will provide a range of private credit solutions to support middle market sponsors and corporations. Leveraging Alcentra’s leading UK and European direct lending experience, the U.S. Direct Lending team will also advise Alcentra Capital in an effort to create value for its stockholders and enhance Alcentra’s U.S. liquid credit loan, high yield and multi-strategy capabilities.
Glaser and Shaikh were also appointed co-presidents of Alcentra Capital, with Rajguru appointed CEO.
“Given our sustained position as one of the leading credit managers in Europe, we are committed to growing our direct lending offer for our clients in the U.S. market. We are delighted to welcome Suhail and Peter to the Alcentra team, as their deep experience in sponsor finance and private credit will further enhance our direct lending capabilities in the U.S. and improve our service to clients,” said David Forbes-Nixon, Alcentra’s chairman and CEO.
Glaser joined Alcentra from KKR where he headed KKR Sponsor Finance, providing clients with capital structure solutions through KKR’s private credit and capital markets platforms. He was previously a managing director at Barclays Capital and held roles on the U.S. Leveraged Finance team as its co-head of Origination & Execution and co-head of the Financial Sponsors Group. In his more than 25-year career in finance, Glaser has also held various positions in M&A and corporate finance at Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Dillon Read and James D. Wolfensohn.
Shaikh joined from Solar Capital Partners, where he was a senior investment professional. He was responsible for the origination, structuring and investment of middle market principal credits, spanning first lien, second lien and unitranche transactions. Prior to Solar, he was in investment banking for over 15 years as a leveraged finance specialist and financial sponsor banker, most recently as a managing director at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. He previously worked at JPMorgan, CIBC and Bankers Trust.
