Melody Capital plans $500 mln fund for loans

If investors prove receptive, New York-based Melody Capital could go as far as a hard cap of $750 million for its Melody Direct Lending Fund, the person said, asking not to be identified because the fundraising is private.

Melody Capital did not respond by deadline to a request for comment.

Melody Capital quietly launched last year, with a group of UBS credit specialists at the helm. The firm was founded by Cesar Gueikian, Omar Jaffrey and Andres Scaminaci, according to the firm’s website. Gueikian built and led the global special situations group in the UBS investment bank, a loan origination and credit opportunities team. Scaminaci and Jaffrey were co-heads of Americas SSG.

The founders decided to go into business for themselves after deciding that new banking rules, chiefly Basel III, coupled with political intervention and increasing regulation, were going to curb middle-market lending, so they launched Melody Capital late in 2012 to make loans to private and unrated companies and asset-rich borrowers in North America and Western Europe, according to the website.

The firm plans to pursue three primary business strategies: to originate “bespoke” senior secured loans and direct lending; to join in syndicates for private loans originated by banks and other institutions; and to invest in corporate debt securities and asset-based investments, including portfolios of receivables, real estate, leases and other tangible or secured assets, according to the website.

Steve Gelsi contributed to this article.