- Reverence Capital is formally launching a credit arm with a $500–$600 million structured credit fund focused on asset-based lending and purchased credit, not equity.
- The strategy will target assets such as real estate–secured loans and other structured credit opportunities, emphasizing yield and downside protection.
- Former Goldman Sachs trader Jeff Verschleiser is joining as partner and CIO to lead the new credit initiative.
- The move builds on Reverence’s strong private equity performance, including a ~$2.5 billion Fund I with ~45% IRR and a $1.2 billion Fund II that exceeded its target.
Read More
Reverence Capital is formally launching its credit division with a structured credit fund that reflects a strategic extension of its existing middle-market financial services playbook. The initiative is spearheaded by Jeff Verschleiser, formerly a senior flow-credit and municipal/mortgage trader at Goldman Sachs, who joins as partner and CIO for credit. [1][3]
The proposed credit fund is targeting $500-$600 million in commitments, with marketing to begin shortly. The fund will focus on asset-based lending and purchased credit assets, including real estate-secured lending; it will not provide equity capital to borrowers. [1][2]
In its private equity business, Reverence has seen strong fund performance: Fund I raised $500 million, increased to $2.5 billion including co-investments, with an IRR of approximately 45%. Fund II closed in March 2020 at $1.2 billion, well above its $750 million target. [2][3][1]
The credit strategy’s rationale is its synergy potential with the PE business—leveraging deal origination, structuring capability, and financial services domain expertise to identify credit opportunities unattractive to equity investors due to valuation or maturity. [2][3]
Strategic implications: it reflects a broader private markets trend of PE firms moving down the capital stack to capture yield or downside protection in credit; the timing suggests trying to pre-empt widening spreads or distressed opportunities; partnership with institutional LPs across geographies will matter. The central open questions are around vintage risk, leverage, sourcing, terms of credit (duration, seniority, covenants), and how the PE and credit arms will share incentives and risk.
Supporting Notes
- Jeff Verschleiser, former Goldman senior trader, is joining Reverence as partner and will serve as CIO for the new credit pool. [1]
- The credit fund aims to raise between $500-$600 million. [1]
- Investments will be asset-based lending, structured credit, purchased assets and real estate loans secured by property; no equity investments will be made in the borrowers. [1]
- Fund I raised $500 million initially, later expanded via partner co-investments to about $2.5 billion; it is generating an IRR of roughly 45%. [1][2]
- Fund II closed at its hard cap of $1.2 billion in March 2020, exceeding its original target of $750 million. [2]
- Reverence Credit strategy was founded in 2020 to pursue opportunistic, structured credit and asset‐based lending in dislocated credit and yield-oriented alternative strategies, seeking to leverage PE deal flow and structuring expertise. [3]
Sources
- [1] www.barrons.com (Barron’s) — March 5, 2020
- [2] www.businesswire.com (BusinessWire) — March 3, 2020
- [3] www.reverencecapital.com (reverencecapital.com) — accessed 2025