Frederick Buffone has joined Greenwich, Conn.-based Fifth Street Management as a managing director and head of capital markets.
Buffone has more than 20 years of experience in capital markets, principally focused on loan sales and syndications. Most recently, he served as director of debt capital markets and syndications at TD Securities, where his responsibilities included structuring, pricing and syndicating loan products, as well as assisting in the secondary trading of par loans. Prior to that, he held similar roles at Jefferies & Company from 2004 to 2009 and CIBC World Markets from 2000 to 2004.
In his new role, Buffone is responsible for middle market syndications and club transactions on behalf of Fifth Street Finance Corp. (FSC) and Fifth Street Senior Floating Rate Corp. (FSFR), both business development companies.
‘Fred's extensive background will be a tremendous asset as we expand our origination and syndication platform, particularly given the widespread demand for senior loans,’ states Leonard Tannenbaum, CEO of Fifth Street.
Fifth Street recently became the investment adviser to its second business development company, FSFR, following its $100 million initial public offering in mid-July.
FSFR will focus on senior, floating rate transactions in the upper middle market in companies with EBITDA between $20 million and $100 million.
‘Fred's deep relationships and background in the world of senior and junior leveraged loans will be integral to both FSC and FSFR as we deploy a larger balance sheet, increase our target hold size and expand our comprehensive suite of financing solutions,’ says Ivelin Dimitrov, chief investment officer of Fifth Street. ‘Our capital markets efforts are organized around delivering fully underwritten solutions to our sponsor partners, while also investing in syndicated and club financings.’
On a combined basis, the Fifth Street platform stands among a limited number of middle market lenders who have the ability to hold loans up to $150 million and underwrite and syndicate transactions up to $250 million.
