CIFC is staffed with a collaborative team of seasoned professionals from a diverse group of firms including Citadel, Millennium, Caxton Associates, JPM, Citibank and RBS. CIFC’s investment professionals have extensive experience in credit analysis, lending, loan syndications and trading, restructuring and workouts, structured finance and portfolio management, and have managed credit portfolios through a variety of economic and interest rate environments. The infrastructure teams support investment and client related activities and contribute to cross departmental collaboration as well as technology solutions.
Our investment team is led by our CIO, Steve Vaccaro, who has 43 years of credit experience including 25 years at JPM. Mr. Vaccaro has been with CIFC since the Firm’s inception in 2005 and is responsible for the oversight of all investment decisions and the strategic direction for the Firm. CIFC has always made, and will continue to make, a significant investment in its portfolio management and credit research teams in an effort to continuously provide value to investors.
John DiRocco, CIFC’s COO has 40 years of experience in the financial industry and has built multiple global infrastructures at financial institutions such as Citadel Investment Group and Paloma Partners LP. At CIFC, Mr. DiRocco oversees CIFC’s infrastructure teams and is responsible for the management of all non-investment activities at the Firm.
We use a combination of the latest technology and constant management oversight to create a culture of discipline and attention to detail in all aspects of CIFC’s business. As Risk and Portfolio Management are at the very core of any investment process, our multiple key management committees meet regularly to evaluate and reassess everything from risk limits of individual funds, positive and negative macro developments, position limits, fair value assessment and execution quality, among other metrics. Oversight of all risk lies with the Risk Management Committee which continuously reviews all areas of potential investment, operational and cybersecurity risk.
CIFC adheres to a consistent, systematic repeatable process for credit investing which has been consistently employed through a wide variety of credit cycles and interest rate environments. We leverage our extensive credit experience to carry out deep and disciplined analysis of each investment, in order to optimize risk and generate alpha while preserving investor principal. Our investment team conducts fundamental-based credit evaluation organized along industry sectors with a focus on understanding relevant macro and micro trends, technological developments, regulatory environment and market position while constantly evaluating financial performance, covenant compliance and liquidity. A strong collaborative work environment across the firm ensures that investment decisions reflect the combined insights of the team.
Highly Integrated Credit Underwriting and Portfolio Management System – CIFC maintains best-in-class portfolio management and trade settlement systems to ensure firm-wide position level risk limit control and an uninterrupted trade execution workflow. Additionally, we have created a completely bespoke database which tracks all credits held in CIFC funds. The design, depth and robustness of this platform provides us with an unquestionable competitive advantage as it captures financial and performance data, covenant compliance, management changes, ratings migration, pricing trends, and structural changes related to all investments.
