Blue Owl Capital Buys CLO Platform Wellfleet Credit Partners from Littlejohn & Co
Posted on 02/16/2022
Blue Owl Capital Inc. entered into a definitive purchase agreement to acquire Wellfleet Credit Partners LLC from affiliates of Littlejohn & Co., LLC. The transaction is expected to close in March 2022 and is subject to customary closing conditions. The purchase price consists of upfront and earnout payments, which will be primarily funded by cash. Upon closing, Wellfleet will become part of Blue Owl’s Owl Rock division, reporting into Craig Packer, Co-Founder and a Senior Managing Director of Blue Owl.
Wellfleet Credit Partners’ CLO management platform launched its first CLO transaction in 2015.
Founded in 2015 as the performing credit arm of Littlejohn, a private investment firm based in Greenwich, CT, Wellfleet focuses on the management of CLO portfolios of broadly syndicated leveraged loans. Wellfleet also invests in third-party CLO equity and junior mezzanine tranches on behalf of separately managed accounts. The platform manages 16 CLOs with over $6.5 billion in assets under management as of December 31, 2021 and is led by seasoned leveraged finance professionals Scott McKay and Dennis Talley. Following the closing of the transaction, both McKay and Talley will continue serving as lead portfolio managers for the platform as employees of Blue Owl.
Advisors
Kirkland & Ellis LLP acted as legal counsel and GreensLedge served as financial advisor to Blue Owl. Stradley Ronon acted as legal counsel to Littlejohn.
