Star Mountain Capital, a rapidly growing employee-owned specialized investment firm with over $4.0 billion AUM, focused on delivering systematic alpha and low market correlated returns from making private loans and private equity investments and purchasing secondary LP interests and assets in the large, fragmented and resource intensive lower middle-market, announced that Lloyd A. Sprung has joined as Senior Advisor.
Star Mountain Capital, LLC ("Star Mountain"), a specialized investment manager with over $4.0 billion in assets under management (committed capital including debt facilities as of 8/31/2024) focused on generating defensive, premium yield and total returns from the less efficient and resource-intensive market of U.S. private small and medium-sized businesses (the “lower middle-market”), is pleased to announce that Lloyd A. Sprung has joined as Senior Advisor. Mr. Sprung has 25+ years of private debt, restructuring and investment advisory experience including raising over $10 billion in private debt and structured equity capital from alternative investors and 20+ years of experience as a restructuring banker providing strategic advice and capital solutions to companies, creditors and stakeholders in complex corporate restructuring and financing transactions.
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Lloyd Sprung, Star Mountain Capital Senior Advisor (Photo: Business Wire)
“As highly aligned investors with our clients, we continue to focus on maximizing the value of our portfolio and are excited to add Lloyd’s extensive expertise,” said Brett Hickey, Star Mountain Capital Founder & CEO. “Lloyd is knowledgeable about companies experiencing distress and how to help navigate financial and operational challenges and will be a great complement to our underwriting and portfolio management best practices.”
“Star Mountain has developed a distinctive and specialized business focused on the resource intensive and less competitive U.S. lower middle-market which has many interesting less correlated attributes for investors,” said Lloyd A. Sprung. “I have been impressed by the Star Mountain team and I am excited to share my expertise and knowledge to help maximize value for all of the firm’s stakeholders.”
Mr. Sprung is currently Managing Member of LAS Advisors, an independent financial and strategic advisory firm which he founded, providing advisory and fiduciary services to companies, creditors, owners and stakeholders of companies facing transformational issues.
Prior to founding LAS Advisors, Mr. Sprung was Managing Director and Head of Private Debt Advisory at UBS, where he founded and led the team within Private Financing Markets advising companies, sponsors and owners in raising private debt capital from alternative investors including private debt funds, direct lenders, BDCs, opportunity funds and other fixed income investors. While at UBS, he also previously served as Managing Director and Head of Restructuring, leading a team of restructuring bankers providing strategic advice and capital solutions to companies, creditors and other stakeholders in corporate restructuring and financing transactions.
Prior, Mr. Sprung was a Senior Managing Director in the Restructuring and Debt Advisory group at Evercore, where he provided restructuring and debt advisory services to companies, creditors and other stakeholders in large-scale capital raising, liability management and corporate restructuring transactions.
Prior, Mr. Sprung was Managing Director at Miller Buckfire, where he provided strategic and financial advice on large-scale corporate restructurings, both out-of-court and in chapter 11 and led the firm’s capital markets practice. While at Miller Buckfire, Mr. Sprung advised on over 30 restructuring transactions involving over $28 billion in total debt.
Mr. Sprung began his career with Merrill Lynch holding multiple roles across its Global High Yield Real Estate, Debt Financing and Derivatives and Global Swap Group. Mr. Sprung also served as Vice President at The Equavant Group.
Mr. Sprung obtained his Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics, Summa Cum Laude, from University of Pennsylvania where he was awarded the Bernard Shanbaum Prize, given to the top graduating economics student. Mr. Sprung obtained his Masters in Business Administration from Harvard Business School, where he was a Baker Scholar.
Today, Mr. Sprung is a member of the University of Pennsylvania College of Arts and Sciences Ambassadors Council. Mr. Sprung holds Series 7, 24, 63 and 79 FINRA Licenses.
As an aligned Senior Advisor, Mr. Sprung assists Star Mountain with deal origination and investor relationships, restructuring and other strategic insights to help Star Mountain and its portfolio investments maximize value.
About Star Mountain
With over $4 billion in assets under management (committed capital including debt facilities as of 8/31/2024), Star Mountain takes a data-driven approach to investing into the North American lower middle-market through two complementary investment strategies: (i) direct debt and equity investing and (ii) secondaries (acquiring LP interests and direct assets and making primary LP commitments). Star Mountain believes these complementary strategies provide data-enhanced, scalable, diversified, and customizable access for its institutional and qualifying high-net-worth investors to established businesses that generally have at least $15 million in annual revenues and under $50 million in EBITDA. Its investors include public pensions, private pensions, insurance companies, commercial banks, endowments, foundations, family offices and high-net-worth individuals. Star Mountain is employee-owned and shares its profits with 100% of its U.S. full-time employees as part of its focus on maximizing value for its stakeholders and investors through alignment of interests.
Since 2010, Star Mountain has made over 275 direct investments in businesses and over 50 secondary / fund investments within its Collaborative Ecosystem®, focused on the North American lower middle-market. One of Star Mountain’s specialties is seeking current cash income for investors that is materially above the typical yields found in the public markets, often accompanied with potential long-term capital gains equity returns and low correlation to public markets through its distinctive origination, underwriting and value-added investment capabilities.
Star Mountain was recently named one of the Inc. 5000 fastest-growing private companies in America.
For the fifth straight year, Star Mountain was again named one of the Best Places to Work by Crain’s New York Business as well as once again one of the Best Places to Work by Pensions & Investments.
Star Mountain believes its focus and dedication has been productive for job creation and economic development including in underserved areas and communities. Star Mountain is dedicated to this large market of underserved businesses purpose-built to address the challenges and opportunities of these companies. As part of its commitment, Star Mountain has trademarked Investing in the Growth Engine of America ®.
Star Mountain’s Charitable Foundation, a not-for-profit 501(c)3 focuses on improving lives through economic development, including job creation, health & wellness and cancer research. Notable missions include helping match veterans and women with high quality small and medium-sized business career opportunities across the country, including within Star Mountain’s portfolio.
Note: This does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to purchase interests in any investment product. Awards and recognitions by unaffiliated rating services, companies and/or publications should not be construed by a client or prospective client as a guarantee that he / she / it will experience a certain level of results if Star Mountain is engaged, or continues to be engaged, to provide investment advisory services; nor should they be construed as a current or past endorsement, testimonial endorsement, recommendation or referral of Star Mountain or its representatives by any of its clients or any other third party. Rankings published by magazines and others are generally based exclusively on information prepared and / or submitted by the recognized advisor. Moreover, with regard to all performance information contained herein, directly or indirectly, if any, readers should note that past results are not indicative of future results. The description and the selection methodologies of each award and recognition are subjective and will vary.
Awards and recognitions by unaffiliated rating services, companies, and/or publications should not be construed by a client or prospective client as a guarantee that he/she/it will experience a certain level of results if Star Mountain is engaged, or continues to be engaged, to provide investment advisory services; nor should they be construed as a current or past endorsement, testimonial endorsement, recommendation or referral of Star Mountain or its representatives by any of its clients or any other third party. Rankings published by magazines and others are generally based exclusively on information prepared and/or submitted by the recognized advisor.
Crain’s two-part survey process consisted of evaluating each nominated company’s workplace policies, practices, philosophy, systems and demographics. The second part involved an employee survey to measure the employee experience. The combined scores determined the top companies and the final ranking. Star Mountain must pay a fee to Crain’s only for survey collection purposes. Detailed eligibility criteria can be found here: https://bestcompaniesgroup.com/best-companies-to-work-for-in-new-york/eligibility/
To be named to P&I‘s Best Places list, all firms met Best Companies’ high threshold for inclusion and were evaluated against others of similar size. Individual firm profiles, which were compiled based on survey results, reflect U.S. employment numbers and were confirmed by Best Companies in the summer. Company and employee comments were edited for space, style and clarity. Assets under management or advisement are as of June 30, unless otherwise noted. To participate, companies had to have at least 20 employees in the U.S., at least $100 million of discretionary assets under management or advisement and be in business for at least one year. An anonymous employee survey, which aimed to evaluate employee engagement and satisfaction, accounted for 75% of a firm’s score; an employer survey, which evaluated workplace policies, practices, benefits and demographics, made up 25%. https://bestcompaniesgroup.com/best-places-to-work-in-money-management/eligibility/
Companies on the 2024 Inc. 5000 are ranked according to percentage revenue growth from 2020 to 2023. To qualify, companies must have been founded and generating revenue by March 31, 2020. They must be U.S.-based, privately held, for-profit, and independent--not subsidiaries or divisions of other companies--as of December 31, 2023. (Since then, some on the list may have gone public or been acquired.) The minimum revenue required for 2020 is $100,000; the minimum for 2023 is $2 million. As always, Inc. reserves the right to decline applicants for subjective reasons. Growth rates used to determine rankings were calculated to four decimal places. https://www.inc.com/inc5000
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Contacts
John Polis – Media@StarMountainCapital.com
