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Peter Watt has joined ISIS Equity Partners from NBGI Private Equity following the recruitment last month of four other professionals and the spin out from F&C Asset Management.

“With the addition of Watt, we now have a team of over 20 investment professionals across London, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds, with the Leeds office due to open this autumn,” said Wol Kolade, managing partner of ISIS.

At NBGI Private Equity, Watt completed a range of successful deals, including European executive recruitment firm Walker Hamill and Brownhills Motorhomes, the motor home retailer. F&C Asset Management and ISIS created a limited liability partnership to manage the group’s private equity investments. ISIS assumed the management of circa £500m of private equity assets. The move had been driven by the introduction of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS).

• Drew Doscher and Jeffrey Horan have been appointed as managing directors to lead GSC Capital Partners’ new hedge fund operation. GSC Partners has US$8bn of assets under management and specialises in distressed debt, corporate credit and European mezzanine. The fund will focus on corporate debt and equity investments in leveraged and distressed scenarios.

Doscher and Horan were previously co-heads of distressed trading at UBS and had also worked together at Lehman. “‘We believe that this new initiative represents an exciting new growth opportunity for GSC Partners and is an excellent complement to our other alternative asset businesses,” said Alfred C Eckert III, chairman and chief executive of GSC Partners.

• Calyon has announced two hires to its loan syndication group that form part of the group’s strategy to expand into leveraged finance and emerging markets. Samantha Stephenson joins as a director responsible for leveraged loan sales and investor coverage. Joining from RBS, and previously at BNP Paribas, Stephenson will report to Michael Sheren, head of leveraged finance and structured telecoms syndications. Nicolas Lipovsky joins the Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa syndication team responsible for origination and structuring. Previously at Citigroup, Lipovsky will report to Dale Summerville, head of CEEMEA.
• ING has made two senior loan sales hires to support the bank’s leveraged finance business. Chris Lovgren joins as a director in the syndicated finance sales and distribution group from SG, where he was a director in the European loan syndications team responsible for loan sales and distribution. Prior to SG, Lovgren worked at UBS.

Kerry Ferdinando also joins the sales and distribution team from Calyon to concentrate on leveraged finance transactions. Both Lovgren and Ferdinando will be based in London and report to Ed Brown, who recently joined ING as head of European loan sales.