John Aylward's Sona Adds Senior Managers From BofA, Barclays

Yahoo

27-03-2025

(Bloomberg) -- John Aylward's Sona Asset Management hired two senior managers for its investment team as the credit firm continues its global expansion.
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Craig Nicol will join as a managing director and head of credit strategy in London and Oleg Melentyev will be director of US credit strategy in the firm's New York office, according to a person familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified discussing confidential information.
Nicol previously worked at Barclays Plc as a high-yield strategist and Melentyev was head of high-yield credit strategy at Bank of America Corp starting in 2017.
Constantine Knox also joined the London office as general counsel from RBC BlueBay Asset Management, the person said. Knox was previously associate general counsel, head of corporate legal at the Royal Bank of Canada unit.
All three will join Sona in the second quarter, the person said.
The firm has made several hires from investment banks in recent years, including the appointment of leveraged-loan veteran Chris Herzog to its capital-markets team, which is led by Stephen Smith, former co-head of global leveraged finance syndicate at Barclays.
Aylward, a former Deutsche Bank AG trader, started Sona in 2016 with about $300 million and has grown assets under management to $11.3 billion. It has also expanded its teams across credit and private dealmaking to more than 100 globally, up from 29 in 2021. Sona manages strategies across its flagship, capital solutions and CLOs funds.
Earlier this year, Bloomberg reported that Karim Kassam will join Sona from Centerbridge Partners to work on its capital solutions business, which provides bespoke loans to businesses that often struggle to access cash. The firm launched its second fund for the strategy last year with $800 million.
(Updates with timing on new hire's previous job in third paragraph, description of capital markets in penultimate paragraph.)
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