GSO Veteran Akshay Shah Sets Up Europe Credit Fund Kyma Capital
GSO Veteran Akshay Shah Sets Up Europe Credit Fund Kyma Capital
(Bloomberg) -- Akshay Shah, a former GSO Capital Partners executive involved in some of the most high-profile European distressed-debt trades, has set up a new fund called Kyma Capital.
Shah registered Kyma last month, according to Companies House filings. It will make long and short bets on European leveraged companies and plans to start trading later this year, according to people familiar with the matter. Kyma, named using a Greek word for ‘wave,’ aims to hire six investment analysts and traders by the end of 2018, the people said, asking not to be identified because the plans are private.
An external spokeswoman for Kyma confirmed the filings. She declined to comment on details regarding the new fund.
Shah, 39, spent about nine years in London at GSO, the $95 billion credit unit of Blackstone Group LP. He was a senior managing director and a member of the investment committee of its Special Situations Fund before leaving in April 2017.
During that time, GSO made successful bets on credit derivatives involving Spanish gaming company Codere SA, for which Blackstone was pilloried by Jon Stewart on "The Daily Show," and Norwegian paper company Norske Skog.
Kyma will hold no more than 10 investments at a time in medium-sized western European companies. The credit-focused fund will hold high-yield bonds, loans, credit-default swaps and shares, and will seek to take an active role in invested companies, the people said. Shah is planning to start fundraising later in the year, aiming to bring the size of Kyma in line with that of other London-based special situations funds, they said.
Julia Walker, a former partner at law firm White & Case in London, and Ripun Jai Mehta, a founder of New York-based advisory firm Novistra, have joined Kyma as partners, the people said.
To contact the reporters on this story: Luca Casiraghi in London at lcasiraghi@bloomberg.net, Tom Beardsworth in London at tbeardsworth@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Abigail Moses at amoses5@bloomberg.net, Chris Vellacott
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