17Capital partner to depart firm

Thomas Doyle will leave the London-based preferred equity specialist in the coming weeks, having joined from JPMorgan in 2018.

A fund finance veteran who joined 17Capital in 2018 is set to depart the firm, Secondaries Investor has learned.

Thomas Doyle will leave the London-based preferred equity specialist in the coming weeks, according to two sources familiar with the matter. The reasons for his departure and next steps are not yet known. He is still on the firm’s website.

Doyle was hired from JPMorgan, where he was a managing director and led the creation of its private equity fund financing business, Secondaries Investor reported. Prior to that he held a number of jobs in banking and insurance going back to 1993, according to his LinkedIn profile.

He was followed across from JPMorgan by managing director David Wilson, who had been head of structuring for the EMEA and Asian fund financing team, and head of legal Emad Shahin, Secondaries Investor reported.

17Capital is in market with its fifth preferred equity fund targeting €1.8 billion, according to Secondaries Investor data. The fund launched in May 2019 and held an interim close on €1.45 billion.

Deals it has done include a £125 million ($174.3 million; €143.9 million) tranche of preferred equity for Exponent Private Equity to enable the UK buyout shop to make follow-on acquisitions.

17Capital has also made a push into NAV-backed lending, forming a $1 billion partnership with an unnamed North American institutional investor, affiliate publication Private Equity International reported.

The firm closed 10 deals worth $1.5 billion during 2020, from a pipeline of $20 billion across its preferred equity and credit platforms, Secondaries Investor reported in December.

Preferred equity and NAV-based lending facilities are both secured against cashflows from a portfolio of assets and can be extended without the need to precisely value the underlying assets. NAV-based facilities tend to be cheaper and count as a liability on the balance sheet.

17Capital did not comment on the departure. Doyle did not respond to a request for comment.