Morgan Stanley AIP hires secondaries exec

Morgan Stanley Alternative Investment Partners has hired Kumber Husain as an executive director on its private equity secondaries team, according to a spokesperson from the firm.

Previously, Husain was a senior vice president at Chicago-based private equity firm WP Global Partners and an assistant vice president at Swiss Re Alternative Investments. He begun working in Morgan Stanley AIP’s New York office this summer.

Morgan Stanley AIP’s most recent private equity secondaries fund closed on $770 million, surpassing its $600 million target in July 2013. Fund III focuses on off-market secondaries opportunities and emphasises small- and mid-cap buyout and special situations funds.

“We believe substantial opportunities continue to exist in areas of the market where we focus and that our solutions-based approach to secondar[ies] investing will remain attractive to both sellers and general partners through all phases of the economic cycle,” managing director Jon Costello, who co-head of the firm’s secondaries practice, said at the time.

Last year the fund completed a secondaries purchase and fund extension process for Ferrer Freeman & Company’s $400 million Fund III. The secondaries transaction was approved by 100 percent of the 2004-vintage fund’s limited partners.

Morgan Stanley AIP is currently in market with its second real estate secondaries fund, which had collected $65.5 million toward its $500 million target as of May. The firm declined to comment on fundraising.