Name: 2021 Year in Review and 2022 Outlook
Start: 2021-12-14T10:00:00Z
End: 2021-12-14T11:00:00Z

Nick Mitra

Société Générale

Nick Mitra

Managing Director | Société Générale

Nick Mitra is a Managing Director in the Credit & Structured Financing platform at Société Générale. He is part of the team responsible for Capital Call, Hybrid, NAV facilities and PE Secondaries financings. Prior to joining Société Générale, Nick worked at Natixis where he headed the Capital Call financing business, He has also worked at Goldman Sachs and Accenture in different roles and was the CFO of an entrepreneurial start-up – UConnections.com – aimed at the education space. Nick started his career at Lehman Brothers as a trader’s assistant in the security lending/repo area. Nick has approximately 18 years of experience in the financial sector. Nick is also a co-founding member of the Fund Finance Association, an industry group dedicated to Fund Finance and related products, where he sits on the Board of the Association.

Nick holds an MBA in Finance from NYU and a BS in Finance from Lehigh University, and is a CFA charter holder. He is also the First Vice Chairman of the Fund Finance Association.

Jeff Johnston

EverBank

Jeff Johnston

Head of Asset-Backed Finance | EverBank

Jeff Johnston is Senior Vice President, Head of Asset-Backed Finance, for EverBank.

Prior to joining the bank, Mr. Johnston was a Managing Director and the Head of Asset Management within Wells Fargo’s Corporate & Investment Banking group with oversight of a nearly $100 billion portfolio of bank commitments.

Prior to founding the Subscription Finance business at Wells Fargo in 2010, Mr. Johnston was responsible for the portfolio and workout of over $10B of legacy structured products for the bank, including cash and synthetic ABS and CRE CDO’s, total return swaps, and RMBS positions. Prior to joining Wells Fargo, Mr. Johnston served in Bank of America’s Global Structured Products group.

Mr. Johnston is a Co-founder and Chairman of the Board for the Fund Finance Association, a global industry association for constituents in the fund finance space, is considered an original thought leader of fund finance and is a frequent speaker at industry conferences.

Mr. Johnston is a CFA charter holder and is a graduate of the University of South Florida.

Laurie Lawler

Société Générale

Laurie Lawler

Managing Director, Head of Capital Call Financing, Deputy Head of FI Origination | Société Générale

Laurie Lawler is currently a Managing Director at Société Générale acting as Head of Capital Call Financing and Deputy Head of Credit & Structured Finance Fixed Income Origination in the US. In her current role, Laurie focuses on the origination of transactions across SG’s credit & structured finance product offerings in addition to running a subscription finance practice servicing SG’s Financial Sponsor, Asset Manager and Insurance Company client base. She joined SG in October 2018 from HSBC where she held various positions from 2006 through 2018, including Head of US Conduit Financing, Head of US Capital Call Financing and most recently was the Head of Structured Finance in the Americas. Laurie has over 20 years of experience in the origination, structuring and execution of structured financings ranging from traditional conduit securitizations to more esoteric fund financing transactions. Prior to joining HSBC, she spent five years within Citi's Global Securitized Markets division executing conduit securitization transactions. Laurie graduated from Iona College in 2001 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Mathematics and was a Division I college athlete.

Matt Lowman

Pantheon

Wesley Misson

Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP

Wesley Misson

Head of Fund Finance, U.S.; Co-Chair Finance Group | Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP

Wes Misson is Head of Fund Finance in the U.S. and co-chair of Cadwalader’s Finance Group. He leads the largest and most experienced team in the U.S. market, which collectively with Cadwalader’s UK Fund Finance practice represents credit providers on Subscription Credit Facilities, NAV-Facilities, Hybrids, Pref Equity Structures, GP Financings, Venture Debt and Capital Relief and Risk Transfer Trades for private equity, real estate and other investment funds of all sizes and vintages sponsored by many of the world’s preeminent fund sponsors. Wes has represented financial institutions as lenders and lead agents in hundreds of Subscription Credit Facilities, Hybrid Facilities, NAV Facilities and other types of fund financings during the course of his career. His experience also encompasses being a market leader on ESG facilities while serving on the firm’s ESG Task Force and being a problem solver for more than a decade-plus working with fund-related borrowers on the negotiation of third-party investor documents with institutional, high net worth and sovereign wealth investors.

Wes was featured in the Financial Times North America Innovative Lawyers 2021 Report in the “Sustainability” category for his representations on nine environmental, social and governance (ESG)-related fund facilities in the U.S., including his work advising Bank of America on a $4.1 billion ESG-linked credit facility tied to Board diversity for funds managed by The Carlyle Group.

Wes has served as lead counsel on many of the largest and most sophisticated fund financings ever consummated. Over the past two years alone, he has advised more than 35 banks as lead or syndicate lender in transactions valued in excess of $75 billion in terms of lender commitments.

Beyond his client work, Wes is very active in broader industry initiatives, as a prolific author and educator on fund finance, including as a regular contributor to the firm’s weekly newsletter, Fund Finance Friday, and as a year-round speaker at and participant in related events, including as part of the Fund Finance Association (FFA), the industry’s main networking association. He is also deeply involved in charitable work as chairman of the Board of Directors of the North Carolina Chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association, and enjoys spending time with his family.

Wes has a J.D. from The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law and a B.A. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Tom Nowak

BofA Securities, Inc.

Tom Nowak

Managing Director | BofA Securities, Inc.

Thomas (Tom) Nowak is a Managing Director in BofA Securities, Inc.’s market leading Syndicated Finance group. He is responsible for managing the Loan Syndicate and Distribution efforts supporting Subscription Finance clients across the bank. Clients include private equity opportunity funds, hedge funds, buy-out funds, credit funds, real estate funds, infrastructure and secondaries funds, as well as public pension plans and institutionally sponsored entities.

Mr. Nowak has 27 years of experience in structuring, syndicating and executing debt transactions across all levels of the capital structure. Prior to assuming his current role, he worked in investment banking as well as financial and economic consulting.

Tom holds Series 7, 24 and 63 licenses and is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame (BBA in Finance) and the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business (MBA in Finance and Accounting).

Andrew Page

Allen & Overy

Ann Richardson Knox

Mayer Brown

Ann Richardson Knox

Partner and Global Head of Fund Finance | Mayer Brown

Ann Richardson Knox is the office practice leader of the New York Banking & Finance practice and is the Global Head of Mayer Brown’s Fund Finance team. Ann also serves on the firm’s Partnership Board. Ann has spent 24 years structuring complex financings to US and global private funds, sponsors and portfolio companies and has represented both financial institutions and funds. Ann’s vast experience encompasses financings at every level of the capital stack and every phase of a fund’s existence.

Ann represents major domestic and foreign investment and commercial banks as lead agent and arranger in connection with subscription credit facilities and net asset value facilities. She has been lead counsel on many of the largest and complex such facilities to funds sponsored by the world’s preeminent fund sponsors and led the first ESG subscription credit facility in the US market. Ann’s practice also includes structuring novel solutions to provide leverage on fund portfolio assets, including private equity limited partnership interests, real estate, infrastructure, debt and portfolio companies. Notably, Ann led the first such portfolio leveraging financings to secondary funds more than fifteen years ago.

Ann has been involved with the Fund Finance Association and Women in Fund Finance industry groups since their inception and currently serves on the US Advisory Board of the Fund Finance Association and is the US Co- Chair of the Women in Fund Finance. She has been recognized by the industry as the 2021 recipient of the Fund Finance Association’s “Woman in Fund Finance Award”. Ann was named a 2022 Notable Diverse leader in law by Crain’s New York Business and has also been named a 2020 “Woman Worth Watching” by Profiles in Diversity Magazine.

Danielle Roman

Mourant

Danielle Roman

Partner | Mourant

Danielle is a Partner in Mourant’s Banking and Finance team in Hong Kong, having practiced in Asia for over 15 years. She advises on a broad spectrum of cross-border transactions, including asset finance (with particular expertise in aviation and shipping finance), fund financing, acquisition and leveraged finance, debt restructurings, project finance, FinTech and general corporate lending.

In fund financing, she regularly represents investment and commercial banks on subscription credit facilities. She is also Co-Head of the Asia-Pacific Executive Committee for the Fund Finance Association, and is on the board of directors of Women in Fund Finance Asia. Danielle has been recognised for her work in fund finance through awards such as the Dee Dee Sklar Women in Fund Finance Award 2020.

Prior to joining Mourant in 2012, she worked at Clifford Chance in Hong Kong and Dentons in London.

Emma Russell

White and Case LLP

Emma Russell

Partner | London | White and Case LLP

Emma Russell is a partner and heads the EMEA Fund Finance Practice in the London office of White and Case. Emma is an experienced loan finance lawyer with over twenty years of experience in the global fund finance and structured and specialty finance. Her practice focuses on the full range of fund lending products across all fund sectors, (including private equity, real estate, secondaries, infrastructure, and hedge) from capital call facilities, hybrid/NAV facilities, to general partner support, co-invest facilities and portfolio acquisition facilities and assisting funds with structuring. Emma has significant experience advising credit funds and their lenders in relation to leverage facilities to CLO’s/CDO’s and securitisation vehicles. Emma’s experience also includes advising both lenders and funds on private equity, receivables financing, asset based lending, speciality finance, real estate fund structuring, and acting for both lenders and sponsors in relation to investment and development real estate finance and leverage restructurings. Emma co-chairs the European Committee of Women in Fund Finance, a group associated with the Fund Finance Association, which is focused on recognition and promotion of women leaders within the alternative investment fund finance industry.

Sorkin, Jenn (Fortress Investment Group)

Jenn Sorkin

Fortress Investment Group LLC

Mary Touchstone

Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP

Mary Touchstone

Partner and Head of Fund Finance Practice | Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP

Mary Touchstone is a Partner and Head of the Fund Finance Practice at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP. Mary has helped to establish Simpson Thacher as a global leader in the representation of financial sponsors in fund financings. She is widely acknowledged as a leading lawyer in the subscription credit facility market and represents many of the world’s preeminent sponsors of private equity, real estate, energy, infrastructure, debt and other investment funds on the largest and most complex fund facilities.

Mary and her team regularly work on a wide variety of fund level financings, including secured and unsecured subscription (or capital call) facilities, with borrowing capacity for the fund as well as its parallel funds, alternative investment vehicles and portfolio companies; fund guarantees and other credit support of portfolio level financings; NAV-based facilities and hybrid variations provided as aftercare facilities for funds that are later in their life cycles with less uncalled capital and more portfolio asset value; credit facilities for managed account vehicles; employee co-investment loan programs; management lines to investment advisers for working capital purposes; and liquidity financings for registered funds.

Peter Vermette

Goldman Sachs

Peter Vermette

Managing Director | Goldman Sachs

Peter is a managing director in the Alternatives Capital Markets & Strategy Group (ACMS) with Goldman Sachs Asset Management and is responsible for global fund financing for the private side of Asset Management.

He is also responsible for the hedging strategy in Asset Management private as well as debt capital markets activity for the Infrastructure Investment Group.

Previously, he worked in the Real Estate Principal Investment Area (REPIA) of MBD in London from. Earlier, Peter worked in REPIA in New York. He joined Goldman Sachs in 1998 as an analyst and was named managing director in 2010.

Prior to joining the firm, Peter worked at Bankers Trust in New York.

Peter earned a BS in Finance from Bryant College in 1997.

Emma Wang

East West Bank

Emma Wang

General Manager of HK Branch | East West Bank

Emma is Deputy General Manager at East West Bank Hong Kong Branch, overseeing all corporate and commercial banking including fund finance. She is the founder of East West Bank’s Private Equity Group in Asia, specialising in providing customised and creative transactions to PE/VC firms. Previously, Emma is a managing partner at TR Capital Group, leading the firm’s strategies to provide non-dilutive NAV solutions to both GPs and LPs. Emma also worked at Comerica Bank Equity Fund Services Group for 5 years, responsible for developing client relationships in the US. She started her career as a credit analyst at MUFG’s New York office. Emma holds a Master’s in Finance from Brandeis International Business School, and a B.A. from Osaka Prefecture University. Emma is trilingual, speaking Chinese, Japanese and English.

Jill Wilson

Lloyds Bank

Jill Wilson

MD, Global Head of Financial Sponsors | Lloyds Bank

Jill leads the Financial Sponsors business which is responsible for managing the relationships with leading Financial Sponsors clients globally.

Jill has over 25 years of experience in Financial Services across a range of leadership roles spanning client, product and operational businesses. Jill has deep experience in private markets including across leveraged and structured finance, debt restructuring and the current leadership of the Financial Sponsors business and teams in the UK and US, which also includes being directly responsible for the business’ fund financing propositions.

Jill holds a BA in Politics and International Relations, is a Member of the Chartered Institute of Bankers in Scotland and is currently on the Board of the Fund Finance Association.

2021 Year in Review and 2022 Outlook

Register now for our upcoming FFA Global webinar featuring representatives from around the world as we take a moment to look back on the market and trends we have seen in 2021!

Speakers

Nick Mitra

Jeff Johnston

Laurie Lawler

Matt Lowman

Wesley Misson

Tom Nowak

Andrew Page

Ann Richardson Knox

Danielle Roman

Emma Russell

Jenn Sorkin

Mary Touchstone

Peter Vermette

Emma Wang

Jill Wilson