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Private Credit Platform Organized into Direct Lending and Securitized Credit Specializations
NEW YORK, June 25, 2024--(BUSINESS WIRE)--ORIX Corporation USA (ORIX USA), announced today the appointment of Nik Singhal as Managing Director and Group Head of Direct Lending within its Private Credit business. Mr. Singhal is based in New York and will report to Jeff Abrams, Group Head of Private Credit and Real Estate and Member, Executive Committee. Mr. Singhal will also join ORIX USA’s Management Committee. His start date at the firm is July 8, 2024.
Mr. Singhal has over 26 years of credit and lending experience, and joins ORIX USA after almost 14 years at BlackRock, where he was most recently Managing Director and Head of Portfolio Management for BlackRock’s U.S. Private Capital group. In that role, he was a member of the Management and Operating Committee for its U.S. direct lending business, and a voting member of the Investment Committee for various direct lending funds. He also served as President of BlackRock Capital Investment Corp., a public BDC, as well as CEO of BlackRock Direct Lending Corp., a private BDC.
In conjunction with this appointment, Mr. Abrams also announced a focused alignment of its private credit platform into two verticals, both reporting directly to him:
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Direct Lending, led by Mr. Singhal and comprised of NXT Capital: lower-middle market direct lending; Growth Capital: private credit for late-stage growth companies; and Municipal & Infrastructure: solutions for the high yield municipal market.
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Securitized Credit, led by Raviv Shtaingos, who has been appointed Group Head of Securitized Credit, comprised of Structured Credit: commercial and residential mortgage-backed credit and alternative asset-backed securities; Asset-Based Finance: bespoke loans backed by hard assets, financial assets, intellectual property and non-core infrastructure; and GP Solutions: private equity fund and management company capital solutions.
As Group Head of Direct Lending, Mr. Singhal will work closely with the relevant business line leaders to expand and grow the businesses, drive origination and performance, and strategically leverage the firm’s balance sheet. He will also partner with ORIX USA’s Asset Management sales and distribution team to continue to raise third-party capital and broaden the firm’s reach in the investor community.
"I am pleased to welcome a seasoned leader like Nik to the firm to lead our direct lending businesses. He will add great value to our existing bench of strong investment leaders and, along with Raviv, will be able to deliver our differentiated hybrid strategy of deploying our balance sheet in alignment with our investor capital to the market," said Mr. Abrams. "By organizing our broad private credit platform into areas of specialization, we reflect the way investors are assessing private credit opportunities, specifically in our long-time focus area of the middle market. With Nik and Raviv’s leadership, the collective expertise of the investment teams, and our experience through market cycles, we are poised to scale our private credit business to the next level."