At a glance
- In practice, Arini wants to be a capital partner across the whole structure, rather than the senior lender in a syndicate.
- The platform behind that pitch has real weight: Arini, founded in 2021, manages more than $20bn (£14.8bn) across public and private credit, and its CLO desk has been active on both sides of the Atlantic, with Alternative Credit Investor's coverage including a €615m European CLO VII and a $502.2m second US CLO.
- When Alternative Credit Investor sat down with Cestar in July, Europe had not come through the so-called SaaSpocalypse unscathed, leaving managers a choice between retrenching toward the safest senior paper and broadening the range of financing structures.
Ben Kunstler is leaving Bain Capital after 18 years as a partner in its European private-equity group to become head of hybrid capital within Arini's private credit team, according to Alternative Credit Investor, a move that puts him on the alternative asset manager's private-credit investment committees.
Arini attributes the appointment to growth in its private credit team and private capital platform; founder and chief investment officer Hamza Lemssouguer frames Kunstler as adding a private-equity investor's perspective to a credit platform whose public and private strategies are built on the same fundamental sector research, while president Mathew Cestar ties the hire to the firm's ambition to offer the complete set of financing solutions to founder-led, family-owned and sponsor-owned businesses. In practice, Arini wants to be a capital partner across the whole structure, rather than the senior lender in a syndicate.
The platform behind that pitch has real weight: Arini, founded in 2021, manages more than $20bn (£14.8bn) across public and private credit, and its CLO desk has been active on both sides of the Atlantic, with Alternative Credit Investor's coverage including a €615m European CLO VII and a $502.2m second US CLO. Capacity is not the problem this hire solves; a former private equity partner supplies underwriting judgment from the equity side, and there is a timing argument for wanting that now.
When Alternative Credit Investor sat down with Cestar in July, Europe had not come through the so-called SaaSpocalypse unscathed, leaving managers a choice between retrenching toward the safest senior paper and broadening the range of financing structures. Lemssouguer's quote in the Kunstler announcement—that the current environment is a chance to provide flexible, long-term credit-oriented solutions—shows Arini has chosen the second path, and the desk Kunstler now runs is the natural home for those solutions.
The background is the departure: Arini imported an equity underwriting history rather than another lending specialist. Hybrid structures sit where credit returns start to depend on what a borrower becomes rather than on what it owns, and an investment committee that now includes an 18-year private equity veteran should price that upside differently from one staffed solely with loan officers. The first few transactions out of Kunstler's desk will show whether Arini's pricing reflects an owner's view of equity or a lender's view of collateral.
Reported by the Direct Lending desk from Alternative Credit Investor. Published . Corrections