GSC's Vanden Beukel resurfaces at CD&R

Christine Vanden Beukel has been hired by Clayton, Dubilier & Rice to “explore a range of credit investment strategies”, the mid-market buyout firm said in a letter to limited partners.

PEO reported in March that Vanden Beukel had ended a 10-year career with mezzanine specialists GSC Group. She joined the credit-focused alternative asset manager when it spun out from Travelers Group in 1999, steering the firm’s European mezzanine lending and collateralised corporate debt activities. She’d previously worked for Greenwich Street Capital Partners, GSC’s predecessor under the Travelers umbrella, since its 1994 founding.

Vanden Beukel joins as a senior managing director in CD&R's London office, which opened in 1999.

A move into the debt markets would signal a new direction for 30-year-old CD&R, known predominantly as an operational turnaround specialist, but would be in line with initiatives taken by many other private equity firms to capitalise on current opportunities caused by the financial crisis and stagnant credit markets. LBO France, BC Partners, CVC Capital Partners, EQT Partners and Providence Equity Partners are among the firms that have either recently raised credit-focused funds or signaled an interest in the sector.