Barings Direct Lending Team Exodus
Big news of most of the senior Barings team on both sides of the Atlantic getting poached by Nomura but leaving the juniors behind (though I hear its heavier on the London side). Does anyone have news on any developments?
Complete shitshow, nothing else. Such an amateur move by the seniors which clearly didn't think through the damage to their reputational regardless if they're now working for Corinthia or whoever. Can say that people at my fund were pretty pissed and finding other lenders to replace the committed lines we have with Barings
Why would a PE fund pay another 2-3 points of OID/Fees to replace committed lines? That makes 0 sense.
Is it common to waive OID in new committed lines?
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Can someone pls spill the tea??
Honestly, I doubt there is much tea. Seniors probably would have been planning this for a while now and would have left for a better comp package and/or long term career prospects. Only gossip would perhaps be to do with the likely disgruntled (understandably) juniors and mid management.
Seniors abandoned carry. Existing junior / mid expected to get BIG pay bump (I.e. 2x cash guaranteed)
Baring‘s does not pay carry given how it’s structured - which obviously makes it’s easier for seniors to leave
There was a carry pot which was left behind
no carry? could you shed some light on other credit shops with similar structures?
Very hard to image that no carry is splitted between MM and Barings. The US team seems stable but EU origination will stall. Lets see if LPs turn back on the deployment or not
How much more did these senior guys get to jump from Barings to Nomura? Must have been an enticing offer.
Assume might be driven by fact they can take significantly more carry / GP economics given Barings is owned by an insureco which I assume means they underpay. Likely effective title bumps as well.
I believe guys you are misreading it - the senior people are effectively setting up their own shop with Nomura providing the seed capital to start operations (guess they will hold a minority stake in the GP). Otherwise it wouldn’t make much sense to pull out a move like this.
From what I‘ve heard, 26 people left, Director and above only, 3 from the US. Juniors are offered basically 100% pay raise to stay. LPs are checking legal ground to revoke their commitments.
not familiar with the situation but if you're a junior there this sounds like the opportunity of a lifetime. 100% pay raise, all your bosses quit, but the client money is still there?
Best chance to quickly jump levels and capture some market share for yourself you will ever get
Could not agree more. Incredible opportunity if you’re a motivated junior + if things end up going sideways at the firm you have a really easy story to tell in interviews elsewhere.
Absolute most no brainer of a situation I've ever seen for juniors to stay. Hopefully there are some motivated and entrepreneurial individuals there angling to slingshot their career development by 5-7 years.
Until garden leave is up and LPs kill the fund due to key personnel provisions
Legal proceedings taking place with court docs online. Should be interesting to see the fallout
Who knows for how long the client money is going to be there, plus no advisor or sponsor would like to touch them atm. The reputational damage is so deep that I don’t know if it’s a no brainer for juniors left.
I’m not sure it’s as much as a no brainer to stay as others are making it out to be. Pay raise is great, agreed. But new originations are on pause without an end to that in sight, and sponsors aren’t going to blindly go back open arms to an IC that they don’t have any experience dealing with. While the step up opportunities sounds great in theory, don’t know how much of those there will be to go around in a red hot market where there’s already an excess of capital chasing a limited supply of new deal activity. On top of that, only 6 people from the US left per BBG (3 of which were IC members), so it’s not like there’s a ton of step up opportunities available. Might make sense to stay through the year and clip the pay bump, but have to consider at what cost that comes at from a learning perspective. I wouldn’t be shocked if there’s an exodus after the retention bonuses lapse. From what I’ve heard most LPs recommitted to the funds, but who knows how much fees they had to give away to get those recommitments. Lower fee income + higher comp pool doesn’t sound like a recipe for long term success.
Originations are only paused on some vehicles, the BDCs can still make new investments.
The BDCs chief accounting officer resigned today as well
Re learning -
The current team members have to assume responsibility of a 10bn+ portfolio, assume board seats of many portcos when VP / below, take D/MD responsibility when several years below
Probably sounds incredible from a learning perspective? Also great at interview?
I personally don't think its a good long-term situation for the juniors. Obviously it's nice to receive a pay raise while you are looking for a new job, but the fund will likely implode. People here pretend that Assocs and VPs now start doing origination and general MD work of which they know nothing about. Barings will likely try to hire some MDs but thats usually difficult unless you get MDs at poorly performing funds or you grossly overpay (and if MDs leave their ship for some additonal $ this also tells you a lot about them).
I also know first hand that LPs are trying to revoke their commitments and many sponsors will be reluctant to work with Barings given this uncertainty. The have simply no advantage doing deals with them now as there are plenty of other funds willing to do deals and there is also no relationship given all D/MDs left.
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https://9fin.com/insights/taking-the-credit-losing-barings
"Across the battlefield, Barings’ owner, the insurance giant MassMutual, is keeping some Barings funds on life support with capital injections."
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BUMP!! Anyone have some insight into the fallout now that the dust has had time to settle?
We heard directly from Barings on this. Seniors leaving was driven by compensation being under street average. Saw the opp at Nomura (who always overpay in new ventures) and left to set up shop. Mass mutual has increased equity since and comp packages offered to existing teams are steller, we heard that most of the US portfolio and investment teams were not keen to leave anyway and now just have an insane opportunity to make the best of this exodus. Fee disgruntled LPs who will be concerned but no borrowers or sponsors should drop these guys over this and SMAs will resume investing soon. Senior leadership has been replaced and new guys are running the show but EU has holes to fill in origination but i expect them to do it quickly. With a MassMutual backing you should not expect this thing to crumble anytime soon.
How's the new shop faring with the injunction. Think they regret moving now or you think they got a comp guarantee?
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There was also toxic environment and “-alleged” bullying of Kelsey Tucker by senior leadership member, revealed in deposition.
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