Growing $1.5b private equity firm adds former Greenhill MD as a partner

A private equity firm that just closed its $1.5b inaugural fund in March has made its latest big-name hire. Ben Lyons, a former managing director at boutique investment bank Greenhill, started at Arcline Investment Management earlier this month in New York as a partner.

Lyons has spent nearly the last two decades covering the industrials sector with a specialization in the chemicals industry. He’ll manage investments in chemicals and specialty materials at Arcline, founded last year by chief executive Rajeev Amara, a longtime veteran of Golden Gate Capital. Based out of San Francisco and with an office in New York, Arcline opened some eyes by easing surpassing the $1 billion mark for its maiden fund.

Other recent hires include Luke Johnson, a former partner at Sentinel Capital who started in February, and Sebastian de Meel, previously a principal at PwC’s Strategy& group. But perhaps the best person to know is Neel Bhatia, an operating partner charged with recruiting talent to Arcline. He just began last month, according to LinkedIn. One note of interest is that a number of their previous hires from 2018, along with de Meel, have backgrounds in management consulting, including several people with stints at Bain & Co., PwC and Boston Consulting Group.

Previous to working at Greenhill, Lyons spent 15 years at RBC Capital Markets and Bank of America.

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