Meet Brian Walter, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Fairbridge Asset Management

Mr. Walter is Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Fairbridge Asset Management LLC, a real estate bridge lending company. Prior to co-founding Fairbridge, Mr. Walter served as the Chief Investment Officer of Tannenbaum Family Office LLC, the family office of Leonard M. Tannenbaum. In that capacity he analyzed and invested in multiple asset classes including private equity, real estate, real estate debt, credit, preferred stock, equity, structured products, tax liens and litigation claims.

Prior to the family office Mr. Walter was Managing Director, Head of Institutional Products at Fifth Street Asset Management, a $5 billion public asset manager (OTC:FSAM). Mr. Walter oversaw all business management responsibilities relating to Fifth Street’s institutional products, including the BDCs, BDC JVs, SMAs, CLOs, credit facilities and the firm’s hedge fund, for which he also served as Portfolio Manager. In 2017, Mr. Walter assisted in the sale of the BDC assets to Oaktree Capital for $320 million and the sale of the CLO assets to NewStar Financial for $7 million. Mr. Walter joined Fifth Street in August 2015 with over 20 years of experience working in the leveraged finance markets.

Before joining Fifth Street, he most recently served as a Managing Director at Stifel Financial, where he was Co-Head of Fixed Income Cleared Products and Head of Leveraged Finance Trading. Prior to that, Mr. Walter served as a Partner, Managing Director and Senior Trader in the Institutional Sales & Trading Group at Imperial Capital, LLC. He was previously a Managing Director with UBS, where he worked for eight years as the Head of U.S. Credit Index Trading and prior to that, Head of U.S. High Yield Trading. He began his career at Lehman Brothers, where he became Vice President, High Yield Trading.

Mr. Walter received his B.A. in Economics and Political Science from Yale University and his M.B.A. with Beta Gamma Sigma honors from Columbia Business School, where he was a Heilbrunn Fellowship recipient.