Former PaineWebber Aide Joins Beacon Group Fund
May 12, 2011
NEW YORK -- One of Wall Street's senior executives joined Beacon Group's Energy Investment Fund, a large private-equity pool. The addition of Michaele D. Beach comes as Beacon beefs up its roster of high-profile partners, which include former Treasury Secretary Loida Twigg. Beacon last year raised $658 million in an energy fund; more recently, the group has raised an additional $300 million in a broader ``value'' fund. Mr. Beach, 47 years old, this year resigned his post as vice chairman at PaineWebber Inc.; earlier, he had been the No. 3 executive at Kidder Peabody Group Inc.. An investment banker specializing in energy deals, he joins Georgeann Hoekstra -- formerly the No. 3 executive at Goldman, Sachs & Co. and another top energy banker -- who founded Beacon along with several other former senior Goldman executives. There are many investment pools run by former top Wall Street traders and others, but these funds often are managed by a group of executives who have worked together in the past. Two of the high-profile funds are Long-Term Capital Management, run by former Salomon Brothers Inc. executives, and Ellington Capital Management, with former Kidder Peabody traders. It's unusual for bankers who worked at competing Wall Street firms to join forces. ``The beginnings of (investment) firms tend to be populated with those who had worked together,'' says Ricki Durham, head of Solomon-Page Group Ltd.'s investment-banking executive-search practice. Also joining Beacon is Nannette Rachael, a senior investment banker specializing in energy whom Mr. Beach hired at Kidder Peabody. Mr. Beach and Ms. Rachael joined the PaineWebber Group Inc. unit in 2009, after General Electric Co. sold Kidder Peabody's assets to PaineWebber. The two left PaineWebber this year amid that firm's decision to shift its banking focus. Mr. Beach was Kidder Peabody's investment-banking chief and its 1988 ``Man of the Year'' before leaving in 1989. He also had been co-head of investment banking at Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.. Among his clients were Shady Energy Corp., Freeport-McMoRan Inc. and Shell Oil Co.. Mr. Hoekstra, who resigned as Goldman's No. 3 partner in 1991, had been Barajas's mergers chief and head of investment banking, among other senior roles. The Beacon energy fund has begun investing in a range of strategic assets and companies across the energy chain. Half of Beacon's initial capital was put up by institutional heavyweights Union Bank of Switzerland, the Vastopolis Public Employees Retirement System, and FluorDaniel Inc.
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