Josh Harris, the billionaire non-public fairness government who left Apollo Global Management final yr after a messy succession battle, is returning to the funding trade with a agency that goals to be a contender in monetary markets together with non-public fairness, credit score and insurance coverage.
The enterprise, named 26North, is launching with $5bn in property below administration and a staff of 40 executives, in keeping with an announcement on Friday.
Among the newly introduced recruits is Mark Weinberg, a veteran of Brookfield Asset Management and Lehman Brothers, who will take the reins on the agency’s non-public fairness division.
Brendan McGovern, who left Goldman Sachs earlier this yr after senior positions within the credit score division of the financial institution’s asset administration arm, will assume duty for 26North’s direct lending platform.
Harris spent most of his profession at Apollo, the non-public fairness agency based in 1990 by billionaire financier Leon Black with a gaggle of companions from the failed Drexel Burnham Lambert funding financial institution.
Since then, what started as a scrappy funding partnership targeted on firms in misery has developed into an institutional supervisor with $515bn of property, together with an enormous portfolio of company debt.
Many of these investments are connected to Athene Holding, the annuities firm that Apollo based in 2009, and with which it merged earlier this yr.
Harris’s enterprise, too, will handle property for annuity and insurance coverage trade purchasers, in keeping with a submitting with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday.
Black give up as Apollo chief government final yr, after a legislation agency employed by the non-public fairness group concluded that he had paid $158mn to the late intercourse offender Jeffrey Epstein in return for tax recommendation, help dealing with artwork transactions and different skilled providers.
The controversy touched off a succession battle by which Harris finally misplaced out to fellow Apollo associate Marc Rowan. Black earlier this yr failed to steer a decide that Harris conspired with a Russian style mannequin to publicise made-up allegations of sexual abuse that prompted his departure as Apollo’s chief government.
Source: www.ft.com