Metrick to leave Blackstone for Centerbridge

Maryfrances Metrick is leaving The Blackstone Group and will join Centerbridge Partners in October to take up fundraising responsibilities, a source confirmed.

Metrick had headed up investor relations efforts in Blackstone’s London office for the past few years. She joined the firm in 1997 and was based in New York for most of her career at Blackstone.

Metrick is joining the multi-strategy Centerbridge as it hits the market with its second fund, targeting $3.75 billion. The news was first reported in Private Equity Insider. The firm recently received a $30 million commitment from the Nashville and Davidson County Metropolitan Employee Benefit System.

Maryfrances Metrick

Centerbridge was founded in 2005 by former head of Blackstone’s private equity programme Mark Gallogly, and former distressed securities expert at Angelo Gordon Jeffrey Aronson.

The firm’s first fund, raised in 2006, has generated an 11.8 percent internal rate of return since inception, as of September 2009, according to performance data from the California State Teachers’ Retirement System.

Blackstone has not announced who will step in for Metrick in London. The firm’s private equity and real estate investor relations efforts are led by Ken Whitney, who oversees a team of around 40 investor relations professionals.

In total, Blackstone has about 73 investor relations professionals across all its funds, including its funds of hedge funds and its credit vehicles, but not including its Park Hill placement agent affiliate. The firm has about 1,150 limited partners across all its funds.