Lee Shaiman, the former lead portfolio manager at GSO/Blackstone, was named the new executive director for the Loan Syndications and Trading Association on Wednesday.
Shaiman will assume his new role at the corporate loan market trade association in 2018, succeeding Bram Smith. Smith, who has led the LSTA since 2008, announced his retirement earlier this year.
"Lee's unique and diverse professional experience makes him exceptionally qualified to take the reins as executive director," said Brian Callahan, a managing director Bank of America Merrill Lynch, in a statement. "He brings both buy- and sell-side experience in the loan market, a wealth of knowledge from serving on the LSTA Board of Directors, and a passion for improving and growing the industry."
Callahan was involved in the year-long search for Smith’s successor, along with Dave Frey, a portfolio manager of HPS Investment Partners and former LSTA chairman. Callahan cited Shaiman’s 30-year background in the loan market and his prior service on the LSTA board from 2012-2015 as major factors in his selection.
"The profile of the LSTA has never been higher, and Lee is the ideal person to lead the LSTA and the loan market through the increasingly complex challenges and opportunities ahead," Frey said in the same release.
Shaiman, currently co-head of credit investments at Denver, Colo.-based Arrowmark Partners, was previously a managing director, director of research and senior portfolio manager at GSO Capital Partners/Blackstone Group.
At Blackstone, the leveraged-finance veteran led funds operated by the private equity firm, including Blackstone/GSO’s Senior Floating Rate Term Fund, the Long-Short Credit Income Fund and the Strategic Credit Fund. He joined as Blackstone formed GSO in 2005 as its alternative asset-management subsidiary.
Shaiman retired in 2015 after a decade of raising funds for Blackstone closed-end mutual funds, exchange traded funds, CLOs and separate accounts. Shaiman’s leveraged-finance background also includes structuring and placement of senior bank loans and bridge financing, private placements, high yield bonds and equity co-investments. He was succeeded by current senior managing director Robert Zable.
Shaiman was also formerly a managing director at UBS and PaineWebber, and held senior positions at the Royal Bank of Canada.
Shaiman, in a prepared statement, credited Smith with leading the LSTA through “many challenges to the loan asset class and the marketplace by working to grow the market, increase the investor base, and improve liquidity and market transparency.”
Shaiman, a New Jersey native, holds a master’s degree in accounting and taxation from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and was an economics major graduate of Rutgers College.
