Barclays and RBS MDs quietly launch distressed debt investment manager

It’s the new thing currently – leave a senior role in a large investment bank after years of experience, set up alone to escape the juniorisation of the industry.

Three senior investment bankers at Barclays and RBS have just quietly launched Shield Capital Management, which is a distressed debt and special opportunities investment manager that also offers deal origination services in the sector.

Andrea Marangoni, who was a managing director and head of EMEA special situations and distressed debt trading at Barclays until April this year is one of Shield’s founding partners. He joined Barclays from Credit Suisse in 2009 and has held various senior roles including head of Southern Europe and Switzerland sales and head of EMEA corporate commodities sales.

Also coming from Barclays is Haig Bezian, who was a director in its EMEA restructuring team with a focus on complex real estate transactions. He had been working at Barclays since 2007.

The final founding partner is Nehal Farooqui, who was most recently head of real estate for Cantor Fitzgerald, but also held the same role at RBS.

Hedge fund and boutique launches aren’t exactly prolific in the current climate, but distressed debt seems like an opportunity, particularly in real estate which is expected to decline in value in the wake of the Brexit vote.

Senior investment bankers are often taking the decision to either go it alone or make a career switch in the current climate as lateral moves in large institutions become harder to come by and banks focus on promoting junior recruits faster, particularly in their markets business.

Des Supple, who was global head of market research at Nomura until late last year, has started his own research boutique, Event Horizon, and the head of fixed income research in New York, Jens Norvig, launched a data company called Exante.

Meanwhile, Toby Gruber, who was a managing director in Credit Suisse’s investment bank, has decided to join fintech start-up Mycommunitybank.