Sun Life Investment Management Welcomes Sam Tillinghast as President, U.S. Private Credit

New role will focus on leveraging team's expertise to grow the third-party institutional business in the U.S.     

NEW YORK, Dec. 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ - Sun Life Investment Management is pleased to announce the appointment of Sam Tillinghast, President, U.S. Private Credit, Sun Life Investment Management.

In this new role, Mr. Tillinghast will be responsible for leading Sun Life Investment Management's existing U.S. Private Fixed Income Group, as well as growing its third-party institutional business.  Based in Sun Life Investment Management's Wellesley, Massachusetts office, he will join the team on January 2, 2018 and report to Candace Shaw, Senior Managing Director and Portfolio Manager, Private Fixed Income, Sun Life Investment Management. 

"We are thrilled to welcome Sam Tillinghast to Sun Life Investment Management," said Ms. Shaw.  "Not only does Mr. Tillinghast have over 30 years' experience in private credit, his leadership experience in building a business from the ground up enhances our existing team.  With his extensive experience, Mr. Tillinghast is well positioned to further drive growth for our U.S. business."

Sun Life Investment Management's Private Fixed Income Group is a leader in the private debt market in Canada and North America with an asset portfolio in excess of C$30 billion. The group's investment philosophy, innovative strategies, team based approach and breadth of experience have enabled it to achieve a leading market position. Seeing an opportunity to provide other institutional investors with access to private credit, which the team has utilised for Sun Life Financial's own general account for over 40 years, Sun Life Investment Management was established in 2014 and has grown significantly in the time since.

"The appointment of Mr. Tillinghast also reinforces our ability to attract top talent," Ms. Shaw adds. "While Sun Life Investment Management was established as a third-party asset management business in 2014, our investment team has decades of experience managing investments on behalf of Sun Life.  Our success since 2014 validates our belief that we have a unique value proposition to offer other institutional investors and the industry is taking notice."

Additional details of the appointment:

Sam Tillinghast, President, U.S. Private Credit, Sun Life Investment Management

In this role, Mr. Tillinghast is responsible for broadening the opportunity set of existing transaction types, leveraging and deepening existing relationships, and developing new business opportunities and new markets in the U.S. Mr. Tillinghast will focus on deploying capital on behalf of the general account as well as for third party-clients. He will drive growth of the business through origination, focused primarily on investment grade deals.

Mr. Tillinghast joins Sun Life Investment Management with over 30 years' of experience as both a business builder and credit investor.  Most recently, he was Co-Chief Executive Officer of THL Credit Advisors, a US$10B alternative credit manager (affiliate of the private equity firm, Thomas H. Lee Partners) that he co-founded in 2007.

Prior to this, Mr. Tillinghast worked for AIG as Managing Director and Head of the Private Placement Group.

Mr. Tillinghast holds a Bachelor's degree in Finance from the University of South Alabama. He also received his M.B.A. in Accounting and Marketing from The University of Texas.

About Sun Life Investment Management 

The Sun Life Investment Management group of institutional investment management companies comprises Sun Life Institutional Investments (Canada) Inc. and Bentall Kennedy (Canada) Limited Partnership in Canada, and Prime Advisors Inc., Ryan Labs Asset Management and Bentall Kennedy (U.S.) Limited Partnership in the United States. These operations have combined third-party assets under management of $56 billion, as of September 30, 2017. Sun Life Investment Management includes the investment division of Sun Life Assurance Company of Canada that manages $141.5 billion in assets under management for the Sun Life Financial group of companies as of September 30, 2017.

For more information, please visit our website – www.sunlifeinvestmentmanagement.com

Note to Editors: All figures in Canadian dollars except as otherwise noted. 

Media Relations Contact:
Connie Soave  
Director, Corporate Communications     
T. 416-407-5721
connie.soave@sunlife.com         

Laura Torchia
Manager, Corporate Communications
T. 416-951-4840
laura.torchia@sunlife.com

SOURCE Sun Life Investment Management