Avenue Capital Group is an American multinational

investment firm An investment company is a financial institution principally engaged in holding, managing and investing securities. These companies in the United States are regulated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and must be registered under t ...

focusing on

distressed securities Distressed securities are securities over companies or government entities that are experiencing financial or operational distress, default, or are under bankruptcy. As far as debt securities, this is called distressed debt. Purchasing or holding ...

and

private equity In the field of finance, the term private equity (PE) refers to investment funds, usually limited partnerships (LP), which buy and restructure financially weak companies that produce goods and provide services. A private-equity fund is both a ty ...

with regional teams focusing on opportunities in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

and

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an area ...

. The firm operates as both a

private equity firm A private equity firm is an investment management company that provides financial backing and makes investments in the private equity of startup or operating companies through a variety of loosely affiliated investment strategies including leve ...

and as a

hedge fund A hedge fund is a pooled investment fund that trades in relatively liquid assets and is able to make extensive use of more complex trading, portfolio-construction, and risk management techniques in an attempt to improve performance, such as sho ...

. Avenue's core strategy is focused on distressed debt and equity securities although the firm also manages investment funds that focus on long-short opportunities,

real estate Real estate is property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this (also) an item of real property, (more general ...

, and

collateralized debt obligation A collateralized debt obligation (CDO) is a type of structured asset-backed security (ABS). Originally developed as instruments for the corporate debt markets, after 2002 CDOs became vehicles for refinancing mortgage-backed securities (MBS).Lepke ...

s. The firm manages assets valued at approximately $9.5 billion.url=https://www.avenuecapital.com/ The firm was founded by former professionals of Amroc Investments, an affiliate of the Robert M. Bass Group. The firm is headquartered in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, with offices in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

Luxembourg Luxembourg ( ; lb, Lëtzebuerg ; french: link=no, Luxembourg; german: link=no, Luxemburg), officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, ; french: link=no, Grand-Duché de Luxembourg ; german: link=no, Großherzogtum Luxemburg is a small lan ...

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...

Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

New Delhi New Delhi (, , ''Naī Dillī'') is the capital of India and a part of the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati Bhavan, Parliament House ...

and

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

. The firm has established an institutional-quality infrastructure in terms of accounting, compliance legal, investor relations, and information technology capabilities. Avenue has approximately 220 employees across its 8 offices worldwide. Avenue's investment professionals seek "good companies with bad balance sheets" — firms with sustainable businesses and positive cash flow but whose financial situation is distressed. The investment team uses Avenue's top-down/bottom-up approach to find undervalued opportunities and typically seeks to make non-operational control investments in troubled businesses. This provides the strategy maximum trading flexibility and allows Avenue's investment professionals to focus on pre-investment research and analysis rather than post-investment operating issues. From 2006 to 2009,

Chelsea Clinton Chelsea Victoria Clinton (born February 27, 1980) is an American writer and global health advocate. She is the only child of former U.S. President Bill Clinton and former U.S. Secretary of State and 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton ...

, daughter of former

President of the United States The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United Stat ...

Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton ( né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and agai ...

and former Secretary of State

Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton ( Rodham; born October 26, 1947) is an American politician, diplomat, and former lawyer who served as the 67th United States Secretary of State for President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013, as a United States sen ...

, worked as an associate at Avenue Capital Group LLC. Bloomberg reported that as of February 28, 2010, Avenue Capital Group is the 13th largest hedge fund in the world.

History

Avenue Capital Group was founded in 1995 by siblings

Marc Lasry Marc Lasry (born September 23, 1959) is a Moroccan-American billionaire businessman and hedge fund manager. He is the co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of Avenue Capital Group, and the co-owner of the NBA's Milwaukee Bucks basketbal ...

and

Sonia Gardner Sonia Gardner (born 1962) is an American businesswoman, hedge fund manager and the co-founder of Avenue Capital Group. Early life and education Sonia Gardner was born Sonia Esther Lasry to a Jewish family in Marrakech, Morocco. She immigrated w ...

. The two founders had previously founded Amroc Investments in 1989 as a $100 million distressed debt investment fund organized in association with the Robert M. Bass Group. In 1995, Mr. Lasry and Ms. Gardner started their first Avenue fund, Avenue Investments, with less than $10 million. This onshore fund has grown to $509 million as of December 31, 2012. In 1997, Mr. Lasry and Ms. Gardner formed their second Avenue fund called Avenue International. This offshore fund attracts U.S. tax exempt and non-U.S. investors. As of December 31, 2012, Avenue International has $1,461 million in assets under management. In 2012, The firm was featured in Maneet Ahuja's book, The Alpha Masters: Unlocking the Genius of the World's Top Hedge Funds. In February, 2016 Marc Lasry explained on CNBC that Avenue Capital was taking advantage of the opportunity to purchase loans from European Banks at a discount. As Lasry said: "Most banks are being forced by the European Central Bank to sell loans and therefore we're able to buy those loans at a great discount. The ECB will likely continue to put pressure on these banks to clean up their balance sheet." In August 2018, it was announced Avenue Capital has invested €250million ($278 million) in Castlehaven Finance, an Irish construction sector lending platform. In March 2021, Avenue signed an agreement with Indian economy airline

SpiceJet SpiceJet is an Indian budget airline headquartered in Gurgaon, Haryana. It is the second largest airline in the country by number of domestic passengers carried, with a market share of 13.6% as of March 2019. The airline operates 630 daily fli ...

to accommodate the financing, sale & leaseback of fifty new airplanes. Since its inception in 1995, Avenue has raised 14 private equity style investment funds across its three principal regions (US, Europe and Asia) to invest in

and

United States

*1998 - Avenue Special Situations I - $133 million *2001 - Avenue Special Situations II - $520 million *2003 - Avenue Special Situations III - $628 million *2006 - Avenue Special Situations IV - $1.68 billion *2007 - Avenue Real Estate Fund - $166 million *2007 - Avenue Special Situations V - $6.0 billion *2011 - Avenue Special Situations Fund VI - $1.9 billion *2014 - Avenue Energy Opportunities Fund - $1.3 billion

Asia

*2001 - Avenue Asia Capital Partners - $126 million *2001 - Avenue Asia Special Situations II - $275 million *2003 - Avenue Asia Special Situations III - $628 million *2006 - Avenue Asia Special Situations Fund IV - $3.0 billion

Europe

*2008 - Avenue Europe Special Situations Fund - €1.5 billion *2012 - Avenue Europe Special Situations Fund II – $2.78 billion Avenue launched its Asian-focused distressed business in 1999. In 2004, Avenue launched its European-focused distressed business with Rich Furst as the senior portfolio manager. While building distressed debt, the European branch of the firm also writes loans for small companies that are unable to obtain financing.

Ownership

In October 2006,

Morgan Stanley Morgan Stanley is an American multinational investment management and financial services company headquartered at 1585 Broadway in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. With offices in more than 41 countries and more than 75,000 employees, the fir ...

bought a non-controlling 15% stake in the firm. Marc Lasry and Sonia Gardner invested 100% of the proceeds they received from Morgan Stanley back into the Avenue funds.

Corporate responsibility

In 2014, Avenue Capital Group raised over $68,000 for HerJustice, a New York-based organisation devoted to ending domestic violence. Avenue Capital Group served as a sponsor in 2010 and 2011 and, in July 2012 Avenue's President,

, hosted a breakfast on inMotion's behalf to encourage other firms to participate. Ms Gardner was again honored in 2014 at the Annual Photography Auction & Benefit for Her Justice. In January 2016 Marc Lasry participated in "Portfolios with Purpose," in which participants compete on behalf of their favorite charities. In April 2018 the firm was reported to be launching a $500 million fund focused on

impact investing Impact investing refers to investing, investments "made into companies, organizations, and funds with the intention to generate a measurable, beneficial social or environmental impact alongside a financial return". At its core, impact investing is ...

References

External links

Avenue Capital Group
(company website)

{{Hedge funds Hedge fund firms in New York City Private equity firms of the United States Privately held companies based in New York City Financial services companies established in 1995 Hedge funds