Guggenheim hires Next Gen Leader to build GP-leds business

Guggenheim Securities has begun to rebuild its private capital advisory team, 11 months after its previous team departed for Jefferies.

The investment bank has hired Orcun Unlu as senor managing director and head of private capital advisory, according to a statement. He starts in late spring and will focus on building a GP-led secondaries advisory business.

Unlu, who appeared in Secondaries Investor‘s debut Next Gen Leaders of Secondaries ranking in 2016, comes to the job from Citi, where he spent four and a half years as global head of its private funds group. Prior to that, he spent a year as a director in the private funds group of UBS.

“Orcun’s long-term relationships with private equity investors and extensive track record of completing innovative secondary market transactions will be highly complementary to our primary capital and private equity advisory businesses,” said Guggenheim chief executive Mark Van Lith.

Guggenheim entered the secondaries advisory space in 2020 by hiring PJT Partners executives Matthew Wesley and Joseph Slevin, Secondaries Investor reported. They were joined later in the year by Richard Saltzman of Houlihan Lokey and Benjamin Carper from Lazard.

In May, the whole team moved to Jefferies, with Wesley becoming global co-head of private capital advisory alongside Brenlen Jinkens and Scott Beckelman, Secondaries Investor reported.

Guggenheim Securities is the investment banking and capital markets business of Guggenheim Partners. The latter has more than $325 billion in assets under management and is active across investment management, investment banking and insurance services, according to its website.