17Capital names new IR managing director

Fund finance specialist 17Capital has hired Drew Fox to head up its investor relations and fundraising team in North America.

Fox replaces Daniel Lee, who joined Oak Hill Advisors at the beginning of October as a managing director in its private lending group. He will be based in the firm’s New York office.

Pierre-Antoine de Selancy, managing partner at 17Capital, praised Fox’s experience and relationships with institutional investors and other limited partners across North America. Fox is joining 17Capital at a time when the firm is seeing “record demand” for NAV finance offerings, de Selancy added.

Before joining 17Capital, Fox was the managing director of Hamilton Lane’s client solutions group and was responsible for raising capital from the largest institutional investors in the United States. Prior to Hamilton Lane, Drew spent eight years at Neuberger Berman, raising more than $5 billion from US institutions for the firm’s private alternative, fixed-income and equity offerings.

Fox also spent two years as a managing director at Fortress Investment Group, where he was directly responsible for raising capital for the crossover ABS/MBS Logan Circle Partners structured credit strategies. Prior to Fortress, he spent seven years at ING Clarion Real Estate Securities, where he was a global sales team leader responsible for the group expanding AUM by $20 billion across long-only and long/short strategies to become one of the largest real estate securities managers.

The London-headquartered lender closed its debut NAV lending fund in April on €2.6 billion, well past its €1.5 billion target. It has also raised five preferred equity funds since 2010, its most recent being the $2.9 billion 17Capital Fund 5.

Earlier this year, 17Capital was acquired by Oaktree, which the specialty finance firm said was done in order to expand further into the US market.