Richard D’Addario, formerly a senior portfolio manager and director of research at Franklin Advisers, has landed at Avenue Capital Management in New York. D’Addario will be setting up a collateralized loan obligation business for Avenue, noted founder Marc Lasry. Avenue’s focus has traditionally been on distressed investments, but it has a mixture of distressed and par assets, said Lasry, who added that it is beneficial to Avenue to build out the CLO platform. Approximately four people will be hired for the CLO effort, and no bank has yet been engaged.

Avenue began life in 1995 and was founded by the brother, sister partnership of Lasry and Sonia Gardner, a principal at the firm. D’Addario meanwhile, joined Franklin in 1996 and was the lead portfolio manager and cio for the Franklin Floating Rate Debt Group, which included four CLOs and three retail funds at the time he departed. The reasons for D’Addario’s departure from Franklin could not be determined, but some sources noted it was not performance related (LMW, 1/23). D’Addario was promoted within Franklin to replace Chauncey Lufkin who became cio of Franklin’s debt group in 2002. A Franklin spokeswoman declined comment.

(Institutional Investor)