Kline Hill adds North American MD

Kline Hill Partners has continued a brisk course of expansion with a new senior hire.

The Greenwich, Connecticut secondaries buyer has appointed Raudel Yanez as a managing director, according to a statement. Yanez will focus on originating, analysing and structuring GP-led transactions in North America.

Yanez comes from three-and-a-half years with secondaries buyer Spring Bridge Partners, where he was a director and reviewed more than $20 billion of transactions. Spring Bridge was acquired in January by Ares Management Corporation.

Prior to that he spent nearly five years as an investment manager with Coller Capital, according to his LinkedIn page.

Kline Hill is targeting a combined $1 billion for its flagship Kline Hill Partners Fund IV, debut GP-led fund Kline Hill Partners Solutions Fund and overage vehicle Kline Hill Partners Opportunity Fund IV, Secondaries Investor reported in February.

In September, the firm hired Partners Group’s Elena Laleh to lead GP-led secondaries in Europe from a new Zurich office. This came three months after the appointment of David Swanson as US-based managing director, coming from nine years at Geneva-headquartered boutique investment manager Unigestion.

Kline Hill targets LP stakes in growth and buyout funds, and smaller GP-led deals that it can “custom-craft”, partner Jared Barlow told Secondaries Investor in December 2020.

“[Small] GP-leds often don’t lend themselves to a broadly competitive processes,” he said. “In older funds… LPs are often down to a fraction of the asset value of what their commitment used to be. It can be that triple win for the GP, the secondary buyer and the seller.”

Kline Hill was founded in 2015 by managing partner Mike Bego, a former partner with Willowridge Partners. He was joined that same year by Barlow, formerly of Sweetwater Capital.