News & Analysis

PJT taps KKR exec for its GP-led effort in New York

The appointment comes a month after the investment bank hired a former Apollo Global Management and Credit Suisse exec to work on the strategy.

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PJT Partners has hired an executive from KKR who has extensive experience in secondaries to help spearhead its GP-led effort, as the sector-wide battle for talent rolls on.

The New York-based advisory firm has hired Gordon Appell as a managing director, according to a source familiar with the matter. He joined on Monday as one of a handful of executives leading the push into the GP-led market and reporting to head of secondaries David Perdue.

Appell joined the alternatives giant in 2018 and was a director there, according to his LinkedIn profile. Prior to that, he had been a director in Credit Suisse‘s private fund group for nearly 12 years.

KKR itself has indicated an interest secondaries, with co-president and co-chief operating officer Scott Nuttall saying in May that the firm was still in the “analysis” phase of entering the secondaries market.

Appell’s hire comes after PJT in May hired secondaries advisory executive Chris Areson away from Apollo Global Management to assist with the GP-led opportunity, as Secondaries Investor reported. Areson had previously served as Credit Suisse‘s head of secondaries advisory for the Americas.

PJT remains globally vigilant on the recruiting front: the investment bank hired former Morgan Stanley financial sponsors executive Jolie Chow in January to head up its Asia secondaries business. Last month, the investment bank hired a principal from Lexington Partners to join her, as Secondaries Investor reported.

In London, PJT hired two advisory professionals from Credit Suisse and Aviditi Advisors in March, following hires from Greenhill and Goldman Sachs in the preceding six months, Secondaries Investor reported. Its European effort is led by Johanna Lottmann.

PJT Partners advised on $10 billion of deal volume in 2020, roughly evenly split between GP-led deals and LP portfolios, according to the Secondaries Investor Advisory Survey 2021. Around $3.8 billion was in single-asset transactions.

A spokeswoman for PJT declined to comment. KKR did not respond to a request for comment.

This article has been corrected to clarify that Appell is not the sole lead of PJT’s GP-led effort.