Lehman Brothers Holdings has removed WCAS Fraser Sullivan as the manager of a portfolio of commercial loans.
A change was disclosed in an Aug. 4 bankruptcy court filing. “The manager was changed by mutual agreement between the company and the prior manager due to a shift in strategy within the loans area,” Lehman said in the filing.
The filing did not name the new manager, citing “confidentiality policies regarding certain of our outside service providers,” and Lehman spokeswoman Kimberly MacLeod declined to comment further. However, Bloomberg reports that it is BlackRock. Blackrock, which runs $3.56 trillion across multiple asset classes, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A year ago, in August 2011, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court gave the green light for Lehman to hire WCAS Fraser to run the loan portfolio, which at the time totaled $5.3 billion, including $3.8 billion in commercial loans and $1.5 billion in unfunded loan commitments.
The agreement called for WCAS Fraser Sullivan to transfer assets from the loan portfolio into a series of static collateralized loan obligations. Lehman said at the time that selling securities issued by the CLOs would generate up to $2 billion for the benefits of its estate and its creditors, with Lehman retaining the equity interests in the CLOs.
No one at WCAS Fraser Sullivan was immediately available to comment. The firm recently entered into a joint venture with U.K. private equity firm 3i to establish a U.S. debt management business.
