Structuring Lead

Business Unit: Barings Portfolio Finance

Location: Boston, MA

Barings is a leading global financial services firm dedicated to meeting the evolving investment and capital needs of our clients and customers. Through active asset management and direct origination, we provide innovative solutions and access to differentiated opportunities across public and private capital markets. A subsidiary of MassMutual, Barings maintains a strong global presence with business and investment professionals located across North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific.

Job Summary

The Structuring Lead role will lead and focus on the structuring, execution and operational design of financing structures for Barings Portfolio Finance. Borrowers are blue chip private markets managers and their portfolios of Private Equity, Credit, including Secondaries, Real Estate and Infrastructure investments.   In the role the Structuring Lead will focus on all stages of transactions from the term sheet to initial structure negotiating the credit agreement/related legal documentation and through to execution, including ongoing portfolio management.

The role will include (i) working with the Portfolio Management team to both challenge and provide structured solutions on the most robust and commercially viable financing solutions, (ii) legal negotiations, (iii) deal execution and (v) driving business critical strategic projects. Building relationships with a wide range of stakeholders across both Barings Portfolio Finance and the broader Barings organization will be key as the Structuring Leads guidance must synthesize critical solutions to help drive growth and deal execution internally as well as externally with legal counsel, clients, borrowers and other key stakeholders.

The Team:

The team is small, close-knit, and highly collaborative. The Structuring Lead will be a critical full-time member of the team. Team members are motivated by a shared goal to originate attractive investment opportunities for MassMutual’s GIA and third-party clients. The Structuring Lead will support all aspects of the Portfolio Finance platform, including working closely in tandem with portfolio managers, in addition to the broader Portfolio Finance team.  

The impact:

An expert resource in understanding risk and designing bespoke structures which balance strong protections with financing solutions for private markets managers, the Structuring Lead is a core part of a dynamic team in Boston, Charlotte and London. Thinking through problems and being prepared to challenge, the individual will have a positive influence on the risk profile and structure of complex private credit transactions. With a collaborative mindset the Structuring Lead will be expected to wear many hats on the deal team and step in where needed as our team continues to grow and evolve. The individual will be expected to build and maintain trusted relationships cross functionally within Portfolio Finance and across the broader organization in order to continue to help grow the business.

A proactive, self-led mentality will enable the Structuring Lead to identify and drive strategic projects and best practices in the team. The Structuring Lead will work with the team across the Boston and London offices and will continue the one team culture which pervades the way the team works and thinks.

Primary Responsibilities

• Be expected to serve as a key driver on the deal team of private credit lending transactions, including the drafting, negotiation and execution of transaction documentation as well as working with Baring’s loan asset management team to document, structure and operationalize each structure in addition to negotiating and documenting Barings expectations with borrowers.

• The Structuring Lead will be expected to bring their strong industry knowledge (any combination of legal, leveraged finance, credit, structuring and/or restructuring/workout) and connections to build relationships with Barings’ borrowers as well as to leverage their network within the private credit markets.

• Demonstrate mastery of strong credit investment experience, underwriting/executing private credit / leveraged finance transactions, modeling and real-time problem-solving skills to serve as a critical resource helping the team to operationalize the investment goals of a given investment, creating situation-specific structures based upon the target collateral and negotiated financing structure, and to understand and optimize the roles of our various partners post-close to facilitate ongoing portfolio management excellence, particularly as applied to complex structures (ABL secured lending, CFOs / Rated Feeders, PE Nav, Secondaries, GP Facilities and other specialized structures) and jurisdictions (including not only standard Delaware structures but also lending constructs used in the UK, Cayman Islands, Luxembourg, Jersey and Guernsey, Ireland and Scotland).

• Need to identify the key structural, operational and credit risk factors present in a new credit facility and synthesize the most efficient and commercial mitigation of these factors.  This role is expected to identify the risks associated with the borrowers’ respective businesses and in the lending structure in particular and be able to clearly articulate strategies to minimize and manage these risks both internally and with co-lenders/participants/clients.

• Coordinate ongoing interactions with current and prospective managers/borrowers

Base Salary Range: $110,000- $180,000 - will depend on experience level and will include additional incentive programs.

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