Riverstone’s credit team launches new energy-focused private credit firm
The credit team at Riverstone Holdings has left to form a new energy-focused private credit manager called Breakwall Capital.
Breakwall is led by Christopher Abbate, Jamie Brodsky and Daniel Flannery, who founded Riverstone Credit Partners in 2014 and have worked together for almost two decades. The new firm will focus on direct lending to middle market and developing energy companies.
It will seek out investments around the themes of increased efficiency, sustainability and decarbonization of energy infrastructure; waste-to-value and the circular economy; next generation fuels and the electrification of transport; stabilization of the power grid; and responsibly sourced natural resources.
“At Breakwall, we believe that addressing the effects of climate change is a complex issue where it is imperative to simultaneously balance energy affordability, reliability and sustainability if there is to be a meaningful, lasting impact,” said Brodsky, managing partner and co-chief executive of Breakwall Capital.
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“As ‘energy lifers’ who have built careers financing companies spanning the full gamut of the energy value chain through all market cycles, we are ideally positioned to help address the “Energy Trilemma,” striving to advance decarbonization while enhancing energy security with every transaction.”
Abbate, managing partner and co-chief executive of Breakwall Capital, added that the team will collaborate with their former partners at Riverstone on the wind down of all existing Riverstone Credit vehicles.
“While we are incredibly excited for our future as an independent and employee owned firm, our investment strategy will remain focused in the same balanced and consistent principles that made us successful in the past,” said Flannery, managing partner and president of Breakwall.
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“We will continue to focus on short duration, first lien senior secured loans to middle-market and developing energy companies. The impact of our capital will continue to be felt at the ground level of companies driving our energy future.”
Breakwall officially launched on 2 January 2024. It has approximately $1.5bn (£1.19bn) in assets under management, which includes dry powder.
Breakwall will also be managing a business that Riverstone Credit Partners launched last June with Vitol, an energy trading company, called Valor Upstream Credit Partners, which is seeking to make structured credit investments in North American upstream oil and gas companies.
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