Cebile hires UBS’s Westerback in US push – updated

Cebile Capital, an advisory firm and placement agent, has hired a secondaries advisory professional and 10-year veteran of UBS to lead its first US office.

Steven Westerback joins Cebile as president and head of the Americas based in the firm’s New York office, according to a statement. He was most recently an executive director in UBS’s private funds group and had left in December last year.

Cebile’s New York office “will allow us to expand our penetration of the North American market, providing greater coverage of institutional investors for our GP placement clients and better enabling us to solve the liquidity needs of limited partners,” said managing partner Sunaina Sinha.

At UBS Westerback led deal teams and advised on more than 25 secondaries deals globally exceeding $12 billion of value, and his experience includes primary capital raising, tender offers, competitive auctions, team spin-outs and complex structured transactions, according to Cebile’s website.

He has prior experience at Paul Capital Partners and Morgan Stanley Alternative Investment Partners.

In November UBS hired Jarid Colucci, a vice-president in Goldman Sachs Asset Management, as a director in its private funds group.

Around half of Cebile’s completed secondaries deals, which number more than 12, have been in North America, Sinha told Secondaries Investor. The firm plans to hire between three and five staff in New York and has worked with six GPs on primary placements in North America.

Cebile also plans to open an office in Hong Kong within the next 12 to 18 months and will hire as many as five staff there, Sinha said.

London-headquartered Cebile was founded in 2011.

– This story has been updated to reflect that Westerback joined as president and head of the Americas and that he left UBS in December 2016.