Weiss, Peck & Greer has hired Peter Lupoff, formerly of EagleRock Capital Management and Azura Capital Partners, to spearhead an increased push into the distressed debt market. Weiss Peck, a subsidiary of Robeco Investment Management, has had its distressed investments under its alternatives strategy. "We have recently decided to expand into this specific area," said a spokeswoman.
Lupoff will oversee the firms' distressed and special situations investments, covering all areas of the investment spectrum and buying bonds, loans and credit default swaps. "They will look into buying anything," the spokeswoman said. "Out-of-favor, stressed, distressed; whatever you like to call it, there may be the possibility of interest."
Lupoff will be a member of the eight-person events-driven strategy team. The team consists of six investment professionals made up of portfolio managers and analysts and two traders working under Arthur Levy, head of the team. Lupoff is joined by one other unidentified member of the team that specializes in distressed and special situations investments. Lupoff and Levy were unavailable for comment.
The size of the distressed portfolio itself could not be determined. "Suffice to say that Weiss, Peck & Greer currently manages approximately $800 million in single strategy hedge funds," the spokeswoman said.
Before joining WPG on Dec. 5, Lupoff was co-founder of Azura Capital Partners, a multi-strategy event driven hedge fund with Mark May of Sagamore Hill Capital Management. The fund, which launched March 1, was short lived, closing several months later. May returned to Sagamore this summer. The pair originally planned to launch four separate strategies with $250 million, but had already postponed the March launch once by the time of May's departure. The firm's cfo, Marc Luongo, departed that same week for New York startup Balance Asset Management.
