BlackRock seeks director for secondaries build-out

BlackRock is on the lookout for secondaries talent, six months after tapping a Goldman Sachs Asset Management executive to lead the strategy.

The world’s biggest asset manager is hiring a New York-based director for its secondaries and liquidity solutions team, according to a job advert posted on its website. The successful candidate will be responsible for sourcing and doing due diligence on deals, as well as post-acquisition monitoring and reporting.

The ideal candidate will have 8-10 years of relevant work experience, an MBA, experience of secondaries in an investment role and some corporate finance or investment experience in private equity, investment banking or management consulting.

The SLS team will make secondaries investments across the leveraged buyout, venture capital, growth and distressed asset classes on a global basis, the advert notes. It sits within BlackRock Private Equity Partners, which has more than $29 billion in assets under management through a mix of customised and commingled primary, secondaries and direct co-investment programmes.

In April the firm hired two Goldman Sachs executives to grow SLS, including the co-head of its Vintage funds business Steve Lessar. He was joined by two-decade Goldman veteran Konnin Tam. Both hold the title of managing director.

BlackRock’s move to the secondaries buyside represents something of an about turn for the firm. The $6.3 trillion asset manager’s private equity head for EMEA, Nathalie von Niederhäusern, had previously told Secondaries Investor that secondaries were “over-hyped“.

“There will be a couple of surprises based on deals done in a rush and in a hype since 2014,” she said.