CHICAGO, IL – Fund Finance Partners (FFP) is pleased to announce that Anastasia Kaup has joined the firm as a Partner in Chicago. Anastasia’s arrival adds to the firm’s depth of expertise and experience, and amplifies the team’s decades-long presence in the fund finance ecosystem. Prior to joining FFP, Ms. Kaup most recently led the…
Prior to joining FFP, Ms. Kaup most recently led the fund finance practice group at an AmLaw 100 law firm where she represented alternative asset managers, sponsor-backed companies, and lenders to such entities, in a wide array of financing and investment transactions. Anastasia’s extensive fund financing expertise spans subscription and NAV-based credit facilities, partner loan programs, management fee lines of credit, and portfolio company financings. She has also advised both emerging and established financial sponsors in connection with all aspects of product development and capital formation in various formats, benefitting institutional, high- (and ultra-high-net-worth) and sovereign wealth investors. Anastasia’s advice to clients on the entire range of strategic and capital-related needs, throughout economic cycles has always been practical and commercial, as well as legal.
Anastasia is consistently recognized for both her professional expertise and community contributions. She is a trailblazer in LGBTQ+ community advocacy, volunteer work, and education initiatives, including as a leader for Out in Finance and Lambda Legal. She was recognized as one of the “Best LGBTQ+ Lawyers Under 40” and has been lauded as a “rising star” by clients and industry publications. Additionally, she served on the Board of Directors of New York’s largest civil rights and advocacy non-profit organization. Currently, Anastasia serves as Co-Chair of the Fund Finance Association’s Diversity in Fund Finance initiative. Anastasia also actively participates in various professional organizations serving the Hispanic/Latinx community, women, and individuals in need.
Richard’s breadth of asset management experience presents valuable, innovative expertise to fund sponsors dealing with fundraising, investor relations, compliance, financing, and portfolio management challenges and opportunities.
Richard began his career as an attorney with two large law firms, representing Fortune 500 companies, privately held entities and alternative asset managers with M&A and capital markets activities, and financial institutions in the execution of leveraged finance and securitization transactions.
Marketing and Communications Director
Katina brings 20 years of experience in marketing and brand management in the financial services industry to FFP. Katina is the director of marketing at Capitala Group, a $3 billion alternative asset management firm based in Charlotte, where she creates and oversees Capitala Group’s communications, social media strategy and corporate branding initiatives. In addition, Katina plans, budgets and executes all corporate meetings, events and investor conferences for the firm.
Prior to joining Capitala in 2013, Katina was Director of Marketing and Events for Frontier Capital. She graduated from Campbell University with a B.A. in Business Administration with a Major in Trust Fund Management and a Minor in Financial Planning.
Consultant
Prior to her work with FFP, Christine spent nearly 10 years in New York City working for global financial institution, Cantor Fitzgerald, L.P. (“Cantor”). During her time with Cantor, she served as a member of the investment team with Cantor GGAM, L.P., (“GGAM”) a Cantor alternative investment vehicle and was responsible for evaluating and executing various acquisition, investment and development opportunities across the hospitality, real estate and gaming sectors. Christine played an integral role managing all aspects of the underwriting, due diligence and investment processes for highly structured debt and equity transactions, primarily in businesses with non-US assets and operations, representing billions of transaction value.
Prior to her roles on the buy-side, Christine served as a member of Cantor’s New York-based investment banking team, focusing on M&A and restructuring transactions across a variety of industries. As a member of Cantor’s investment banking team, she also oversaw the investment banking group’s analyst program, leading analyst recruitment and training efforts, and worked with Cantor’s Head of Banking to develop the first-ever investment banking summer internship program.
Before joining Cantor, Christine worked as a part of the investment banking group at Sheridan Road Financial, a Chicago-based financial advisory firm. Christine graduated cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania with a B.A. in International Relations and Mandarin Chinese.
His deep understanding of fund formats has led to the development of creative fund finance structures including hybrid and NAV structures and fund of fund and fund of hedge fund facilities, private placements, open-end fund lending structures and several different variations of fund aftercare facilities.
As the Global Head of Mayer Brown’s Fund Finance practice and Co-Head of their Global Lending practice, Zac led over 500 fund financings including 350 individual subscription-backed credit facilities. Zac also co-founded the Annual Fund Finance Symposium, now administered by the Fund Finance Association.
Zac maintains a high-profile presence in the private equity and fund finance spheres. He is the pre-eminent writer in the space having authored more than 40 articles on various topics relating to the laws, regulations, and structures impacting the fund finance universe. He regulary moderates and sits on industry panels; his work has been cited in a number of prominent publications, from the Los Angeles Times to Bloomberg.
“smart, hard-working and personable – he is able to clearly outline the business issues and come to thoughtful compromises.”-Chambers
Our founders have collectively negotiated over 600 fund financings. FFP knows how to obtain the best documentary terms.
We understand how important facility capacity is, particularly toward the end of the fund’s commitment period. Borrowing base capacity preservation and maintenance is one of our specialties.
We negotiate flexible covenants and loosen events of default by leveraging the underwriting positives of your fund and platform strengths, making it certain that the facility will be available when it is most needed.
Finally, we streamline post-closing deliverables to reduce the administrative burden that these facilities impose.
Most fund sponsors rely on their existing bank and attorney relationships to finance their funds. We drive competitive innovation among the universe of lenders.
We’ve been on all sides of the transaction. We know lender asset class and collateral preferences. We know their pain points when it comes to underwriting, covenants, pricing and post-closing obligations.
We are also familiar with the advantages and disadvantages of the particular law firms in this space. We manage bank and fund counsel, ensuring they remain focused and on budget.
Running an efficient and effective loan process demands an understanding of the marketplace. Whether that’s knowing which lenders include certain investors in their borrowing base or whether they have true NAV underwriting capabilities, FFP can quickly locate the best capital source for your fund and investment strategy.
We’ve worked with every lender in the space and even designed some of their credit underwriting criteria. We’ve executed on every product and even invented a few of them. You know your investment strategy – we know how to find the best financing.
FFP does the heavy lifting by identifying and then removing potential stumbling blocks in the fund structure, constituent documents and side letters while preserving maximum facility optionality/flexibility.
We save you time by locating the appropriate capital sources, drafting and negotiating term sheets with various lenders through a curated auction process. We then review and comment on all facility documents and coordinate seamlessly among outside counsel and the lender, ensuring you execute on time, every time.