Square Nine Capital is launching with serious firepower — led by Nicole Musicco and Peter Ma, bringing deep institutional roots to a $1B+ opportunistic credit play in the mid-market.
The pair are looking to form a more than $1 billion platform, Square Nine Capital, that will focus on opportunistic lending to mid-sized companies, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Musicco and Ma will be joined by other executives from Morgan Stanley, said the people who asked not to be identified as the details are private, adding that it’ll launch in early June.
Musicco declined to comment, as did Ma and a Morgan Stanley representative.
The venture marks Musicco’s, return to credit markets after a brief 18-month stint as chief investment officer role at Calpers. Her departure made waves in the industry, as the largest pension fund in the US
raced to hire a new CIO following several abrupt exits. Musicco spent more than 16 years at the
Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan and a year at the Investment Management Corporation of Ontario before joining RedBird Capital Partners, according to her LinkedIn profile.
She’ll be joined in her new venture by Ma, who has spent about four years with Morgan Stanley’s private credit platform and previously worked for almost a decade at
Colbeck Capital Management, a private credit firm.
The pair will be the latest to launch a credit venture at a time when borrowers are looking at ways to amend their debt or find creative financings. Earlier this month, former
Ares Management Corp. partner Scott Graves
launched Lane42 Investment Partners, focused on opportunistic investments by providing liquidity to firms across the spectrum. Paul Goldschmid, a former partner at King Street Capital Management, and Two Sigma alum David Cohen also
debuted their new credit firm Harvey Capital Partners to invest in idiosyncratic investments.