Avenue Capital Group - History

History

Avenue Capital Group was founded in 1995 by Marc Lasry and Sonia Gardner. The two founders had previously founded Amroc Investments in 1989 as a $100 million distressed debt investment fund organized in association with the Robert M. Bass Group.

In 1995, Mr. Lasry and Ms. Gardner started their first Avenue fund, Avenue Investments, with less than $10 million. This onshore fund has grown to $509 million as of December 31, 2012.

In 1997, Mr. Lasry and Ms. Gardner formed their second Avenue fund called Avenue International. This offshore fund attracts U.S. tax exempt and non-U.S. investors. As of December 31, 2012, Avenue International has $1,461 million in assets under management.

In 2012, The firm was featured in Maneet Ahuja’s book, The Alpha Masters: Unlocking the Genius of the World’s Top Hedge Funds.

Since its inception in 1995, Avenue has raised 13 private equity style investment funds across its three principal regions (US, Europe and Asia) to invest in distressed securities and real estate:

United States

  • 1998 - Avenue Special Situations I - $133 million
  • 2001 - Avenue Special Situations II - $520 million
  • 2003 - Avenue Special Situations III - $628 million
  • 2006 - Avenue Special Situations IV - $1.68 billion
  • 2007 - Avenue Real Estate Fund - $166 million
  • 2007 - Avenue Special Situations V - $6.0 billion
  • 2011 - Avenue Special Situations Fund VI - $1.9 billion

Asia

  • 2001 - Avenue Asia Capital Partners - $126 million
  • 2001 - Avenue Asia Special Situations II - $275 million
  • 2003 - Avenue Asia Special Situations III - $628 million
  • 2006 - Avenue Asia Special Situations Fund IV - $3.0 billion

Europe

  • 2008 - Avenue Europe Special Situations Fund - €1.5 billion
  • 2012 - Avenue Europe Special Situations Fund II – $2.78 billion

Avenue launched its Asian-focused distressed business in 1999. In 2004, Avenue launched its European-focused distressed business with Rich Furst as the senior portfolio manager. While building distressed debt, the European branch of the firm also writes loans for small companies that are unable to obtain financing.

Read more about this topic:  Avenue Capital Group

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    Postmodernism is, almost by definition, a transitional cusp of social, cultural, economic and ideological history when modernism’s high-minded principles and preoccupations have ceased to function, but before they have been replaced with a totally new system of values. It represents a moment of suspension before the batteries are recharged for the new millennium, an acknowledgment that preceding the future is a strange and hybrid interregnum that might be called the last gasp of the past.
    Gilbert Adair, British author, critic. Sunday Times: Books (London, April 21, 1991)

    Social history might be defined negatively as the history of a people with the politics left out.
    —G.M. (George Macaulay)

    The awareness that health is dependent upon habits that we control makes us the first generation in history that to a large extent determines its own destiny.
    Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)