Greenhill MD to join ex-colleagues on the buy-side

Greenhill managing director Brian Mooney is set to join his former colleagues at Portfolio Advisors, Secondaries Investor understands.

Mooney will be responsible for the Darien, Connecticut asset manager’s GP-led secondaries programme, according to three sources familiar with the matter. He will be working alongside former Greenhill private capital advisory head Stephen Sloan, who joined in September with vice-president Michael Song.

His starting date has yet to be announced and he remains at Greenhill, according to one of the sources.

“We are delighted to have Brian join Portfolio Advisors to lead this new GP restructuring fund for us,” said managing director Brian Murphy. “He is one of the thought leaders in the industry and his talents and leadership will help us further scale our secondary business.”

Speaking to Secondaries Investor last week, Murphy noted that Portfolio Advisors has a small pocket for GP-led deals in its flagship secondaries fund. “We didn’t want it to go beyond 20 percent because we didn’t want to change the fund’s strategy. Launching an independent GP restructuring fund will then allow our clients that are very interested in that space to adjust their exposure to any level they would like.”

Mooney left Greenhill at the same time as fellow MDs Todd Miller, Andy Nick and Chris Bonfield. They follow former colleagues Brenlen Jinkens and Scott Beckelman, who moved to Jefferies in September to launch a secondaries advisory unit, Secondaries Investor reported.

Speaking on an earnings call last week, Greenhill chief executive Scott Bok said the firm would aim to rebuild its secondary advisory unit around GP-led deals, as opposed to the portfolio sales where it made its name.

“They tend to be very tailored, very complex and, frankly, just like in the M&A and restructuring world, the more complicated the things are that you work on, it tends to be the higher fees that you end up earning,” he said.

Greenhill declined to comment on the move.