Northill Capital is launching Goldbridge Capital Partners, a newly established European credit asset management company. With the backing of Northill, Goldbridge will be able to deploy up to $100 million equity and seed capital.

The firm has been established by a team of investors led by Gina Germano and Dipankar Shewaram with the financial backing of Northill Capital, an independent privately held asset management business.

The launch of Goldbridge marks the reformation of one of Europe’s most experienced sub-investment grade/distressed teams, including Thomas Naess, Samantha Wessels, Nick Thomson and David Levenson.

The team at Goldbridge believe that the current credit market crisis combined with the need for European banks to de-lever will lead to a significant number of new high yield and distressed investing possibilities as businesses restructure. Goldbridge will seek to profit from the opportunity presented by the refinancing glut. The under-representation of institutional investors in the European sub-investment grade credit market compared to the US, combined with the ongoing regulatory and economic shifts is creating an unprecedented opportunity.

"We established Goldbridge with a view that the ongoing development of Europe's credit markets will produce a protracted period of inefficiency,” said Gina Germano, founding partner, Goldbridge Capital Partners. “The timing of our launch corresponds with the growing requirement for alternative sources of capital. We believe that the likelihood of a second economic downturn, the fast approaching wall of refinancing against an environment of undercapitalised banks and the enormous capacity for European institutional ownership of sub-investment grade debt offer a rare opportunity for investors. We have assembled the key pillars - teams, capital, specialist products and infrastructure to exploit this opportunity in an impactful way.”

Goldbridge aims to fulfil the role of a pure play credit manager with no investment banking, private equity or proprietary investment activity. It will use long-only and long short fund launches to focus in sub-investment grade and investment grade. Goldbridge sees demand for a credit asset management company with experienced credit specialists that combine local market knowledge and a strong bottom-up research process.

The ownership of Goldbridge is split equally between its founding partners and Northill. This will allow Northill to provide deep industry experience and expertise and conflict-free private capital to support long-term alignment between the investment team and its clients.

Jon Little, Partner, Northill Capital, added: “This is our largest investment to date as part of our strategy to build a diversified portfolio of asset management businesses to create long-term value. Goldbridge has a world class team in place, is well capitalised, free from conflicts and has the capacity to manage billions of dollars of assets from the outset. We are very excited about being part of this emerging story.”