Private credit boom drives Sixth Street hiring spree in Europe

FILE PHOTO: Buses cross Waterloo Bridge with the City of London financial district seen behind, in London, Britain, March 5, 2024. REUTERS/Toby Melville/File Photo

By Sinead Cruise and Tommy Reggiori Wilkes

LONDON (Reuters) - Sixth Street is embarking on the biggest European recruitment drive in its 15-year history, leasing a new regional headquarters in London's Mayfair and adding up to 20 employees this year for a push into private credit and real estate.

Julian Salisbury, co-chief investment officer of the $75 billion global investment firm - which counts a number of ex-Goldman Sachs stars among its leaders - told Reuters the outlook for private markets in Europe was really strong.

"Because of the growing scale of firms like ours, a vibrant ecosystem of companies and entrepreneurs increasingly have the alternative to stay private longer or focus on growing their businesses with the support of long-term private investors," said Salisbury.

Sixth Street's European growth plan, reported here for the first time, is the latest example of ambition among U.S. investment firms to expand into less developed private credit markets. Ares Capital and Apollo Global Management have also become big players in the sector.

These investment firms are meeting demand from corporate borrowers that traditional banks are struggling to serve as a result of stricter rules on how much lending risk they can keep on their balance sheets.

Private credit still represents just a fraction of the overall lending handed out by banks, but its rapid growth has spooked some regulators and financiers, who worry about the sector's relative lack of supervision and whether it could undermine financial stability.

"Tighter provisioning and capital requirements on banks mean it's more punitive for them to hold these assets now, so they want partners with whom to share that risk," said Salisbury.

Founded in 2009, Sixth Street employs more than 600 people, including more than 200 investment professionals. Alan Waxman, Goldman alum, is a co-founder and CEO.

Citing London's attractive talent pool, Salisbury said the city was the "obvious first choice place" from which to build the firm's international business, even though other cities were "opening their doors and catching up" post-Brexit.

Sixth Street employs around 60 staff in London and its new offices in Dover Street close to the Ritz Hotel has capacity to accommodate twice that number.

"We expect our business to grow a lot here," said Salisbury, who spent 25 years at Goldman before joining former colleagues at Sixth Street in February.

With UK national elections next week, British-born Salisbury said he hoped politicians would protect the UK financial services industry, which he described as a "crown jewel".

"We have had a local presence here since 2011 and are growing our international business. For now, that's focused around London, with Asia a future priority," he said.

REAL ESTATE PUSH

Sixth Street has invested in businesses ranging from Airbnb to Bay FC, a professional women's soccer franchise.

Sixth Street launched its dedicated structured products business in March 2022. It hired New York-based Michael Dryden, former global head of securitised products finance at Credit Suisse to lead the team, which counts asset-backed finance as a particular market of interest.

"Private credit markets are expected to double over the next five years and we think there's organic growth potential across all our credit strategies," Salisbury said.

The company, which has also provided capital to Spanish soccer clubs Real Madrid and FC Barcelona, led the KKR-backed consortium that bought Greensky, a lending platform for home improvement loans, earlier this year.

Salisbury said bolstering the group's real estate business in Europe was another priority in 2024, after hiring Marcos Alvarado from Safehold Inc. in February to head its U.S. team.

Sixth Street resisted temptation for heavy investment in the down-markets of 2021 and 2022 and sold specialist lender Kensington Mortgages to Barclays two years ago.

Now, it is ready to capitalise on bigger discounts being offered by sellers.

Recent deals include buying, alongside other investors, a portfolio of Italian supermarkets and shopping malls valued at 258 million euros ($275.72 million).

"Real estate has become a real stock picker's market, with increasing divergence between winners and losers and a need to drive more returns through operating performance as opposed to simply levered yield trades," Salisbury said.

($1 = 0.9357 euros)

(This story has been refiled to add 'CEO' as Alan Waxman's job title in paragraph 8)

(Editing by Jane Merriman)