GSO’s Goodman launches GP stakes business

Bennett Goodman, one of the most well-known individuals in private debt, is to jointly launch a firm buying minority stakes in mid-market alternative asset managers.

Goodman has teamed up with Avi Kalichstein to form Hunter Point Capital, which has a strategic partnership with a group of investment entities associated with Jacob Rothschild.

Goodman has more than 35 years’ industry experience across various investment strategies. He co-founded and built GSO Capital Partners, one of the world’s largest credit platforms, which manages more than $125 billion in assets as the credit arm of The Blackstone Group.

Goodman was the ‘G’ in GSO. When announcing his retirement from the firm in August last year, it had already lost the ‘S’ and the ‘O’ – co-founders Doug Ostrover, who went on to co-found Owl Rock Capital Partners, and Tripp Smith, as sister title Private Debt Investor reported at the time.

Kalichstein was previously managing principal of Easterly, a global alternative asset management business founded in 2009, having also been a managing director at JC Flowers & Co and Goldman Sachs.

Based in New York, HPC will target managers in private equity, private credit, real estate and infrastructure across North America, Europe and Asia. It will offer strategic advice, LP capital formation and other services to these managers.

Kalichstein becomes chief executive of HPC while Goodman is executive chairman. Michael Arpey, a former global head of investor relations at the Carlyle Group, joins as president.

Other members of the HPC team include: Rex Chung, head of capital formation and a former head of the client and partner group in Asia at KKR; Debra Bricker, chief financial officer and an ex-CFO at Harvest Partners; and Mariska Richards, general counsel, who will join in January 2021 from Kirkland & Ellis, where she is a corporate partner in the private equity practice.