New York-headquartered private credit placement agent Briarcliffe Credit Partners has acquired London-based Branch Advisory to boost its institutional investor base in Europe.
Branch Advisory is a European placement agent led by Rollo R. Wigan. He will serve as head of EMEA at Briarcliffe and sit on its leadership team.
Briarcliffe said the acquisition will provide “immense value” to European limited partners by bringing otherwise unknown US managers to their attention.
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“This strategic expansion is in service to the sustained and growing institutional investor demand for private credit strategies globally,” said Jess Larsen, founder and chief executive of Briarcliffe Credit Partners.
“With projections to become the largest private market asset class in the coming years, we are at the cusp of what will be a truly golden age in private credit. This expansion will bring the truly differentiated, uncorrelated strategies Briarcliffe selects to the EMEA investors, the second largest global concentration of institutional capital.”
Wigan has more than 23 years of experience in private credit fundraising both in New York and Europe.
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While at Branch Advisory, he helped clients from across the private credit space raise commitments from every type of institutional investor.
Prior to founding that firm, he served as co-head of client advisory for BlueMountain Capital and spent many years in senior sales roles at Halcyon Asset Management and MKP Capital.
Wigan noted his “excitement to be joining the largest dedicated team in private credit, one which has demonstrated an incredible track record of closing institutional capital.”
“Over my 20+ year career in credit, I have seen a dramatic increase in appetite for private credit from my LPs,” he added. “Branch Advisory’s incorporation into Briarcliffe will allow us to bring world class managers to those LPs.”
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The acquisition comes after a busy few months for Briarcliffe.
Serving as exclusive North American placement agent to BC Partners Credit, the private credit arm of BC Partners, and Freeport Financial, Briarcliffe helped raise more than $3.4bn (£2.5bn) in investable capital for their respective funds, Special Opportunities Fund III and Freeport First Lien Loan Fund VI.
