The CS strategies range across leveraged finance and strategic credit. The leveraged finance strategy invests in liquid and illiquid debt across the capital structure in the primary and secondary markets, including leveraged loans, high-yield bonds, unitranche loans, bridge financings, convertible bonds, mezzanine debt and preferred equity. The strategic credit strategy invests in special situations credit, specialty finance assets (both consumer and commercial), royalties, CLOs, and other asset classes – and can do so in the form of direct lending, structured credit and flow arrangements, as well as hybrid and equity/residual exposures.
Our breadth of strategies enables us to provide solutions for our partners’ evolving capital needs as well as for the largest and most complex transactions in the market.
The group targets investment opportunities that ranges from $100 million to $1 billion plus in North America and Latin America.
Our Team
David Colla
Managing Director, Head of Capital Solutions
David leads the Capital Solutions group.
Prior to joining CPP Investments in 2010, he was a Senior Vice President at Oaktree Capital Management in its Mezzanine Finance Group in New York. Before that, David was a Vice President at JPMorgan in its Principal Investments and Leveraged Finance groups in New York.
David holds a BAH in Economics from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont., and an MBA from the Ivey Business School at Western University.
He is on the board of Antares Capital.
Allie Bradford
Managing Director, Capital Solutions
Allie is responsible for sourcing, evaluating and managing credit investments in within the Americas, with a specific focus on the healthcare and industrials sectors.
Prior to joining CPP Investments in 2015, Allie worked at Goldman Sachs, most recently on the US Leveraged Finance Syndicate team.
Allie holds a B.A. in Government and Psychology from Dartmouth College.
Paras Vira
Managing Director, Capital Solutions
Paras is responsible for the Capital Solutions Group’s non-investment grade corporate credit business in North America.
Prior to joining CPP Investments in 2014, he was a Senior Vice President in the Mezzanine Finance group at Oaktree Capital Management in New York. Previously, he worked at UBS Investment Bank in the Leveraged Finance group in New York.
Paras holds a BS in Operations Research & Industrial Engineering from Cornell University and an MS in Operations Research from Columbia University.
Hussain Abbas
Managing Director, Capital Solutions
Hussain leads our North American Strategic Credit business, including the origination and execution of transactions, and portfolio management. Strategic Credit includes all of our activities across corporate special situations credit, structured finance (asset backed & CLOs) and life sciences lending.
Hussain has been with CPP Investments for over 12 years, joining us from Barclays Capital in the Energy, Utilities & Infrastructure group in London where he focused on M&A, Leverage Finance and capital-raising activities. Previously, he worked at an energy investing joint venture between First Reserve and Petrofac Resources.
Hussain holds an MEng (Hons) in Chemical Engineering from the University of Toronto and an MBA (High Hons) from the University of Chicago.
Nils Schulze-Halberg
Managing Director, Capital Solutions
Nils leads CI’s credit investing efforts in Latin America.
He joined CPP Investments in 2012 in the Private Debt team, where he originally focused on leveraged finance and structured credit transactions in North America, and started to build up the Latin America portfolio in 2013.
Nils has over 11 years of experience in Latin America, acting both as advisor and principal. Prior to joining CPP Investments, Nils was Vice President and board member at LXG Capital in Peru, an investment banking boutique he helped found in 2009. Before that, he was an Associate at JPMorgan, where he advised clients on M&A and debt capital markets transactions across Latin America.
Nils holds a BA in Economics from Yale University, an MBA from the Wharton School and an MA in International Studies from the Lauder Institute, both at the University of Pennsylvania.
Hetal Patel
Managing Director, Capital Solutions
Hetal focuses on investments in corporate debt of non-investment grade sponsored and non-sponsored issues in North America and Latin America.
Prior to joining CPP Investments in 2017, Hetal was a High Yield Portfolio Manager at 1832 Asset Management – ScotiaBank. Before that, he was a Vice President at New York-based credit hedge fund Trian Credit Partners LP, and CLO manager Trimaran Advisors LLC. Previously, he worked in leveraged credit investing at Barings Corporate Investors.
Hetal holds a BA (Hons) in Economics from the University of Michigan.
Felix Shabashevich
Managing Director, Capital Solutions
Felix focuses on sourcing, evaluating and managing corporate credit opportunities.
Prior to joining CPP Investments in 2017, he was a Director at Lone Star Funds where he focused on credit investments in special situations and private debt solutions. Previously, Felix spent eight years at Oaktree Capital Management, focused on investing in privately structured debt and equity transactions. Prior to that, he worked at Bear Stearns in the investment banking division focused on industrial and healthcare industry sectors, and started his career at JP Morgan, initially in the technology division supporting credit derivatives trading and then as an associate in the investment banking division.
Felix holds a BS in Computer Science from Pace University, and an MBA in Finance and Accounting from the Leonard N. Stern School of Business at New York University.