Post-succession Angelo Gordon hires Blackstone exec Scott Soussa

Soussa's hire is the first made at the senior level by Josh Baumgarten and Adam Schwartz since they became co-CEOs in January.

Angelo Gordon, which this year completed a leadership transition, recruited for its senior bench the co-head of Blackstone’s GP stakes strategy.

Scott Soussa, an 18-year Blackstone veteran, will join Angelo Gordon in April 2022 in the newly created role of chief strategy officer, the New York firm said in a statement. The nature of Soussa’s CSO duties were not disclosed.

The hire does not signal Angelo Gordon’s intention to enter the GP stakes market, sources told Buyouts. Instead, Soussa will be responsible for building the firm’s existing credit and real estate platforms and adding to the organization’s capabilities, they said.

Soussa has in recent years led or co-led Blackstone Strategic Capital Advisors, the part of Blackstone Alternative Asset Management that oversees the GP stakes and hedge fund seeding units. He was previously head of due diligence in the hedge fund solutions group.

Blackstone in March said Soussa planned to depart at year’s end for another opportunity. His hire by Angelo Gordon is the first made at the senior level by Josh Baumgarten and Adam Schwartz since they became co-CEOs in January.

Baumgarten and Schwartz’s appointment as co-CEOs was part of a succession event that saw Angelo Gordon co-founder Michael Gordon step back from day-to-day management. Gordon, who launched the firm with John Angelo in 1988, is now chair of the partnership advisory board.

Angelo Gordon started out as a distressed debt and special situations investor. With managed assets of $44 billion, it today features a broad range of credit strategies, such as corporate credit, direct lending and structured credit, and real estate strategies, such as private equity real estate, commercial real estate debt and net-lease real estate.

The credit platform, led by Baumgarten, is by far the larger of the two. It is presently raising several funds, among them a second distressed and special situations credit offering. The vehicle’s predecessor, AG Credit Solutions Fund, closed last year at $1.8 billion.

Angelo Gordon’s Twin Brook Capital Partners is also marketing a fourth mid-market direct lending fund. It is targeted to bring in $2 billion with a $3 billion hard-cap, Buyouts reported.

Blackstone’s GP stakes business closed its debut fund in 2014 at $3.3 billion. A second offering is in the market with a $4 billion target, Buyouts reported. The portfolio holds 15 PE and hedge fund managers, among them GTCR and Sentinel Capital Partners, which secured minority investments this year.

Mustafa Siddiqui, Strategic Capital Advisors’ co-head since 2020, was in March tapped to become sole head of the strategy.

Blackstone declined to provide a comment on this story.