Victory Park Securities has acquired Bowline Group, a Chicago-based middle market advisory firm.
Victory Park Securities was recently formed to serve as an advisory platform focusing on debt restructuring, capital raising and M&A engagements for middle to lower middle market private and small cap public companies.
Bowline Group founders Brian Moncrief and Thomas Affolter will lead Victory Park Securities as managing directors. In conjunction with the acquisition of, Victory Park Securities has also retained Daniel Schwartz to round out the team of managing directors.
Prior to founding Bowline Group, Moncrief and Affolter spent the majority of their careers as principal investors focused on leveraged lending within the middle market. Moncrief was most recently a managing director within the corporate lending group of Fortress Investment Group, while Affolter most recently served as director within the corporate finance group of CapitalSource. Schwartz was most recently co-head of private placements at the Shemano Group, where he focused on private placement transactions for small cap public companies.
Moncrief and Affolter will head up the firm’s Chicago office, while Schwartz will open a West Coast office in San Francisco at the end of the year.
The team recently hired Thomas Welch, a former associate at CapitalSource, to serve the Chicago office as an associate.
Brendan Carroll, a managing director at Victory Park Securities, says: “The acquisition of Bowline Group and the retention of Mr. Schwartz instantly positions Victory Park Securities as a leading advisory platform with a complimentary suite of investment banking services alongside our affiliated financial services business. We are pleased to be joining forces with such an experienced team of investment professionals as we continue to expand the Victory Park platform.”
