Goldman Sachs Asset Management is the lead investor in a transaction to purchase stakes in two older distressed debt funds overseen by a former unit of TCW Group, two people with knowledge of the deal said.
Goldman Sachs Asset Management agreed to lead a syndicate that will buy stakes from investors in 2002 and 2005 funds run by Crescent Capital Group, which separated from TCW in 2011, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the information is private. The deal size would be about $350 million, including net asset value and new investment capital. (TCW Group is now owned by Carlyle Group.)
Crescent Capital, the Los Angeles-based firm headed by co-founders Mark Attanasio and Jean-Marc Chapus, hired UBS to run the sales process, which would offer its investors a way to exit their holdings, the people said.
GSAM, which oversees $935 billion, is deploying capital in a competitive secondary market where deal volume is expected to exceed $30 billion this year as buyers bid up prices to post-crisis highs, according to a July report from Cogent Partners. Goldman Sachs bid 94.8% of net asset value for stakes in the 2002 fund in August, according to a memo on the $3.9 billion Fresno County (Calif.) Employees' Retirement Association website.
Andrea Raphael, a spokeswoman at Goldman Sachs, declined to comment on the deal, as did Bill Mendel, a spokesman for Crescent Capital, and Megan Stinson, a spokeswoman for UBS.
Crescent Capital is letting investors exit TCW Shared Opportunity Fund IV, a $250 million pool nearing the end of its life. Crescent would manage the fund on Goldman's behalf while it sells the remaining investments.
Investors agreed to extend the term of the fund, originally scheduled to expire in December 2010, until the end of this year, according to the Fresno County memo.
Crescent Capital raised its last distressed-focused fund almost a decade ago: TCW Shared Opportunity Fund V, which gathered about $525 million in 2005.
