Preston Hollow pair leave to form new high-yield muni firm

A pair of municipal bond veterans have left Preston Hollow Community Capital to launch their own shop that will source high-yield muni deals to alternative asset manager Fundamental Advisors.

Charlie Visconsi and Ron Van Den Handel announced the formation of V2 Municipal Capital this week as an independent firm that will partner with New York-based Fundamental.

The new firm will work with broker-dealers, municipal advisors and other market participants to source deals that "achieve borrowers' objectives, while also incorporating highly customized and robust protections for invested capital," the firms said in a release.

V2MC will specialize in asset-based lending, serving traditional municipal issuers to find tax-exempt and taxable deals in the sectors of health care, housing, education and infrastructure.

Visconsi joined Preston Hollow in  2018 and most recently was co-head of originations, where he acted as lead principal investor on approximately $1.3 billion of transactions, with a focus on borrowers in higher education, health care, senior living and governmental spaces. Prior to joining Preston Hollow, Visconsi spent 20 years at Morgan Stanley in the public finance group and was co-head of public finance for five years.

V2MC

Van Den Handel since 2020 was a managing director on the originations team at Preston Hollow, where he sourced deals all sectors and served as lead originator for workforce housing transactions. Prior to joining PH, Van Den Handel was at Deutsche Bank for 14 years and Raymond James for 13 years.

"There is a clear gap in funding in the municipal bond market, across both tax-exempt and taxable projects," said Visconsi in the release. On its website, V2MC identifies the gaps as existing between three areas: the traditional capital public market, commercial bank funding and other forms of agency financing such as Housing of Urban Development debt. "We look forward to leveraging our deep relationships across the market to structure solutions that benefit borrowers, while offering strong protections for our investments," Visconsi said.

New York-based Fundamental, founded in 2007, is focused on "special situations in the municipal market and public purpose assets," according to its website. The firm has been "a dedicated investor in public purpose, municipal and community assets, and now more than ever, these assets need flexible and creative capital solutions to prosper," said the firm's chair and CEO Laurence Gottlieb. "Our firm is enjoying great momentum as we enter this partnership."

V2MC declined to comment. Preston Hollow did not immediately return a request for comment.

Preston Hollow, which invests in mostly high-yield, customized municipal bond deals, has invested in more than $5.1 billion since its inception by founders Jim Thompson and Cliff Weiner in 2014, according to its website.