Marathon Asset Management Appoints Karen Lau as Senior Portfolio Manager

Lau will provide Marathon with additional senior expertise and insight as its CLO strategy surpasses $5 billion in AUM

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Marathon Asset Management (“Marathon”), one of the leading global credit investment managers, today announced that Karen Lau has joined the firm as Managing Director and Senior Portfolio Manager within the Corporate Credit group. In addition, Ms. Lau will become a member of the firm’s performing credit Investment Committee. In this role she will report to Louis Hanover, Chief Investment Officer, and will focus on the management of Marathon’s collateralized loan obligation portfolios. Ms. Lau joins Marathon as a highly experienced portfolio manager, having been an integral part of several leading CLO managers during her career of nearly twenty years. Marathon has issued over $8 billion across seventeen CLO vehicles since 2005, not including its $400mm inaugural static CLO, which priced on July 14, 2022.

Ms. Lau joins from Onex Credit where she served as a Managing Director, Head of U.S. CLOs, managing over $10 billion of AUM across 20 funds, and member of the Par Loans & High Yield Investment Committee. Prior to Onex, Karen spent six years at TPG Institutional Credit Partners as Co-Head of Portfolio Strategy focused on portfolio construction, warehouse ramping, and portfolio optimization of the TICP CLOs. Similar to TPG, Karen joined Blackstone Credit at the inception of their CLO business in the early 2000s, serving over ten years as Senior Investment Analyst. She is a current IMN Advisory Board member for CLOs and leveraged loans and a graduate of the NYU Leonard Stern School of Business.

“We are thrilled to welcome Karen to Marathon,” said Louis Hanover, Co-Founder and Chief Investment Officer at Marathon Asset Management: “Her expertise and knowledge in the CLO and leveraged loan space will be an excellent addition to our experienced global performing credit team. As a Senior Portfolio Manager, Karen will be an especially valuable addition to our team as we seek to generate alpha for our clients by pursuing the growing range of investment opportunities across the CLO markets. Bringing on another senior investment professional of Karen’s caliber also further demonstrates Marathon’s commitment to reinforcing our position as a leading credit manager and providing unparalleled service to our investors.”

“I am excited to join the Marathon team to help build and scale the CLO platform alongside its extensive investor relationships,” said Ms. Lau. “The firm’s strong risk culture, deep bench of talent, and firm-wide cross-collaboration has enabled us to navigate our CLOs across multiple cycles. I look forward to continuing this strong heritage and delivering value to current as well as prospective CLO stakeholders.”

Marathon’s CLO strategy is now led by Ms. Lau and Jonathon Siatkowski, Head of CLO Structuring, alongside Marathon Partners Andrew Brady and Jason Friedman. Marathon’s CLO strategy couples a team of 14 focused investment professionals and five operations professionals with the full firm’s credit expertise, trading acumen, franchise, and structural knowledge to seek to generate alpha for our investors.

About Marathon

Marathon Asset Management, L.P. is a New York-based global investment advisor with approximately $23 billion of capital under management. The firm was founded in 1998 and is managed by Bruce Richards (Co-Founder & CEO) and Louis Hanover (Co-Founder & CIO) and employs more than 165 professionals. Its corporate headquarters are located in New York City and it has offices in London, Tokyo, Miami, Los Angeles and Luxembourg. Marathon is a Registered Investment Adviser with the Securities and Exchange Commission. For more information, please visit the company’s website at www.marathonfund.com.