W Capital promotes two to managing director

Direct secondaries firm W Capital Partners has promoted Katie Stitch and Blake Heston to managing directors, according to a statement.

In their new roles, they will continue to source, close and manage transactions to provide liquidity to private equity backed companies. They were previously principals at the firm.

Stitch joined W Capital in 2005 and came from Bank of America Securities where she worked as an analyst, focusing on mergers and acquisitions and corporate finance transactions for energy companies.

Heston joined W Capital in 2007 and came from Lehman Brothers where he was involved in structuring mergers and acquisitions, buyouts and financing transactions in the firm’s technology M&A group. He also worked at First Albany in his career.

“Katie and Blake have been integral in the firm’s growth and success for more than eight years,” said David Wachter, a managing editor at W Capital, in the statement. “Their commitment to the firm’s success, culture and integrity is greatly appreciated by our entire team.”

Both Stitch and Heston are based in New York. W Capital now has seven managing directors.

W Capital closed its third fund two years ago, reaching its hard cap of $750 million. It had deployed about 30 percent of that fund as of September 2014, Secondaries Investor previously reported.