(Bloomberg) -- Palmer Square Capital Management, a $37 billion credit firm run by a husband-wife duo, is exploring a sale of the business.
The shop — led by Chris and Angie Long — has grown to become one of the biggest issuers of collateralized loan obligations. The pair sat next to each other at Princeton University, landed jobs together at JPMorgan Chase & Co., and now helm a Kansas-based firm that's been riding explosive growth in the global market for corporate loans bundled into bonds.
Palmer Square engaged bankers who have been fielding offers and whittling down a list of potential bidders, according to people with knowledge of the matter, who asked not to be identified discussing the confidential talks. The Longs didn't respond to requests for comment.
Early backers of the firm included a family that once ranked as the world's largest Pizza Hut franchisee. As the Longs' business grew, so did the couple's profile as they became co-owners of the Kansas City Current women's professional soccer team alongside Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes and his wife Brittany, a former soccer pro.
Palmer Square's biggest attraction is a CLO platform that accounts for about $27 billion of total assets under management, according to S&P Global Ratings.
The US CLO market has quadrupled to more than $1.3 trillion in the past 15 years. Investors in large-scale asset managers like the "sticky" recurring fees that the vehicles generate.
Masters' Mentee
Based in Mission Woods, Kansas, Palmer Square is named for the hub in the heart of Princeton, New Jersey, across from the Ivy League school.
Angie Long, a rugby player at Princeton, counts Blythe Masters as a mentor and was part of the pioneering team at JPMorgan that built up the then-nascent market for credit derivatives. A Kansas native, Long was 29 when she reached the rank of managing director at the New York-based bank.
Chris Long founded Palmer Square to seize on credit-market dislocations in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. He initially got it going with about $10 million of his own money. Angie Long joined a few years before it began managing CLOs in 2013. She's now chief investment officer, and Chris is chairman and chief executive officer.
The firm's other investments span opportunistic credit, private credit and a publicly traded business development company.
The Bicknell family, which was flush with cash after selling NPC International Inc., the Pizza Hut franchisee, held a controlling stake in Palmer Square before the Longs agreed to buy them out in 2018. When they reached that deal, the firm had about $7.5 billion of assets under management — an amount that has since quintupled.
--With assistance from Tom Maloney.
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