Goldman Sachs recruits Andre Alfaro for private equity team

Alfaro was previously a New York-based managing director at OMERS Private Equity, where he focused on investing in business services and healthcare sectors.

Goldman Sachs Asset Management, the primary investing area within Goldman Sachs, hired Andre Alfaro as a managing director, private equity, Buyouts has learned.

Alfaro, formerly a managing director at OMERS Private Equity, joined the New York firm this month, according to his LinkedIn profile. He could not be reached for comment. Goldman Sachs did not respond to a request for comment.

Goldman Sachs Asset Management, a provider of investment and advisory services to institutional and individual clients, has since a 2020 restructuring housed the prior merchant banking division, formed in 1986. Now called alternatives, the $400-billion-plus business invests across global private markets and asset classes.

The firm recently saw a major change in leadership. In January, Luke Sarsfield was appointed global co-head of Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Reuters reported, placing him alongside Julian Salisbury, who has led or co-led the operation over the past two years. Before, Salisbury ran merchant banking.

Given his background, it is possible Alfaro will work in corporate private equity, which targets investments of $50 million to $800 million or greater in companies across sectors and regions through buyout, recap, growth and stressed/distressed deals. The group sits inside alternatives’ equity sleeve, as does GS Growth, Goldman Sachs’ growth equity strategy.

PE deals done this year by Goldman Sachs include a $125 million investment in Fortress Information Security, a supply-chain cybersecurity provider to critical industries, and a $250 million investment in Hydrostor, a long-duration energy storage solutions business. In addition, Goldman Sachs sold Financeit, a point-of-sale financing company, to Wafra Capital Partners.

Alfaro was with OMERS Private Equity for more than seven years, joining in 2015 as an associate director, according to his LinkedIn profile. Based in New York, he focused on investing in business services and healthcare sectors, participating in deals like Epiq, a legal service solutions provider, and Paradigm, a complex medical case manager.

Before, Alfaro was a project leader at Boston Consulting Group and an associate at Nautic Partners. He appears to have begun his career as an analyst in Goldman Sachs’ investment banking division.

OMERS Private Equity earlier this year made several key changes to its in-house team, Buyouts reported.

They included promotions, among them the appointment of Eric Haley to head of the North American direct buyout group, a job formerly held by Michael Graham, now OMERS’ global head of private equity. Managing directors Geoff Bird and Mark Van Wart were also named, respectively, head of business services and head of healthcare.

Lane McDonald, previously with Partners Group, was hired as a managing director, operations. The appointments were intended in part to offset recent departures.