Ex-Duff & Phelps advisory team resurfaces with $1bn mandate

Duff & Phelps’s former secondary advisory team has resurfaced, four months after Secondaries Investor reported that the unit had departed.

London-based managing director Dan Nolan, William Arnold and Maulik Patel have joined the private markets team at Swiss interdealer broker Tradition, according to their LinkedIn profiles.

The team will structure and coordinate “bespoke secondary processes” drawing on experience executing “GP-led restructurings, portfolio re-balancing via non-core sales, tail-end portfolio transactions and single line item sales”, according to Nolan’s profile.

The team has a mandate to sell $1 billion of private equity assets on behalf of a US endowment over the next eight-to-12 months, according to two sources with knowledge of the matter. It will begin by selling five private equity fund stakes worth around $400 million.

The team will be joined by New York-based John Corley, according to the Financial Times, which first ran the news. It will particularly focus on restructuring private equity funds negatively affected by the coronavirus crisis.

Secondaries Investor reported in early September that Corley had left Duff & Phelps.

In a May article for Secondaries Investor, Nolan promoted the use of side pockets, typically associated with hedge funds, as a way of isolating private equity assets hurt by the pandemic: “The creation of special purpose vehicles to house assets requiring a different strategy could allow GPs to take control of the situation, creating long-term value for both themselves and their investors,” he said.

The four joined Duff & Phelps from interdealer broker Tullett Prebon in the first half of 2018, Secondaries Investor reported.

A spokesman for Traditional declined to comment.

Tradition is one of the world’s largest interdealer brokers in over-the-counter financial and commodity products, according to its website.