ORIX Corporation USA announced the appointment of Nik Singhal as Managing Director and Group Head of Direct Lending within its Private Credit business. Singhal is based in New York and will report to Jeff Abrams, Group Head of Private Credit and Real Estate and Member, Executive Committee. Mr. Singhal will also join ORIX USA’s Management Committee. His start date at the firm is July 8, 2024.

Singhal has over 26 years of credit and lending experience, and joins ORIX USA after almost 14 years at BlackRock, where he was most recently Managing Director and Head of Portfolio Management for BlackRock’s U.S. Private Capital group. In that role, he was a member of the Management and Operating Committee for its U.S. direct lending business, and a voting member of the Investment Committee for various direct lending funds. He also served as President of BlackRock Capital Investment Corp., a public BDC, as well as CEO of BlackRock Direct Lending Corp., a private BDC.

In conjunction with this appointment, Mr. Abrams also announced a focused alignment of its private credit platform into two verticals, both reporting directly to him:

• Direct Lending, led by Mr. Singhal and comprised of NXT Capital: lower-middle market direct lending; Growth Capital: private credit for late-stage growth companies; and Municipal & Infrastructure: solutions for the high yield municipal market.

• Securitized Credit, led by Raviv Shtaingos, who has been appointed Group Head of Securitized Credit, comprised of Structured Credit: commercial and residential mortgage-backed credit and alternative asset-backed securities; Asset-Based Finance: bespoke loans backed by hard assets, financial assets, intellectual property and non-core infrastructure; and GP Solutions: private equity fund and management company capital solutions.

As Group Head of Direct Lending, Mr. Singhal will work closely with the relevant business line leaders to expand and grow the businesses, drive origination and performance, and strategically leverage the firm’s balance sheet. He will also partner with ORIX USA’s Asset Management sales and distribution team to continue to raise third-party capital and broaden the firm’s reach in the investor community.

“I am pleased to welcome a seasoned leader like Nik to the firm to lead our direct lending businesses. He will add great value to our existing bench of strong investment leaders and, along with Raviv, will be able to deliver our differentiated hybrid strategy of deploying our balance sheet in alignment with our investor capital to the market,” said Mr. Abrams. “By organizing our broad private credit platform into areas of specialization, we reflect the way investors are assessing private credit opportunities, specifically in our long-time focus area of the middle market. With Nik and Raviv’s leadership, the collective expertise of the investment teams, and our experience through market cycles, we are poised to scale our private credit business to the next level.”

Earlier in his career, Mr. Singhal worked at HBK Capital Management, where he grew and managed a middle market lending business, and at Lehman Brothers in its principal finance group focusing on middle-market investments. Mr. Singhal holds a BS in Computer Science and Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi and an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad, India. He is also a CFA Charterholder.

“I am thrilled to be joining ORIX USA at this pivotal time for the firm. While ORIX USA has maintained a relatively low-profile in the investor community, their platform and potential are world class,” added Mr. Singhal. “There is currently a lot of global traction and investor interest in NXT Capital and Growth Lending, both of which are well established businesses, and I am looking forward to working with them as well as with the experienced Municipal and Infrastructure group to invest and raise third-party capital.”

Signal Peak Capital Management, a private credit business focused on liquid broadly syndicated loans and CLOs, will continue to report directly to Mr. Abrams.