Introducing the Centrifuge Credit Group

Real World Assets Centrifuge Credit Group
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Dear Centrifuge community,

Please join me in welcoming the inaugural Credit Group (more details on the Credit Group in the RFC and poll here). These are seasoned credit experts with specializations in different asset classes, and they will provide the Centrifuge community and our partners with unbiased and objective reviews of pool onboarding proposals (link to POP V2). Additionally, they will support the community with all questions around the setup, assets, and risks of proposed new and existing pools.

With DeFi Capital Markets as the facilitator, the initial Credit Group will be made up of 2 advisors and 5 reviewers, who will work together to get us started with creating a framework and template for risk reports, and coming up with criteria for POPs to be assessed and processes to engage with potential issuers and review reports.

Because we are starting with a small group, we expect to utilize external consultants for reports on various asset classes where the Credit Group has limited expertise. Advisors will provide general guidance for the group and help with the evolution of the strategy of the CG as it grows. Reviewers will be paid hourly for their time spent as provided for by the community in the poll: writing the reports, sourcing for external consultants, vetting the reports of the external consultants, responding on the forums and with external-facing activities with partners, etc. External consultant payments will be figured out on a case-by-case basis based on their market rate within the budget approved by the community, our need for that specific asset class, etc.

We are looking to schedule the inaugural meeting of the Credit Group in the next few weeks, and will have most, if not all of the Credit Group, at the Feb 16 Governance call.

Cc @roollie

Advisors

Name: David Jeng

Bio: David currently serves as CEO and Board Member for Wintec Industries Inc – a global supply chain management and manufacturing company. He sits on the Board for Graniterock – one of the largest materials and infrastructure construction companies in the San Francisco Bay Area. David is also an active investor and advisor for blockchain projects, technology startups, hedge funds and venture funds. David serves as Secretary General of Monte Jade West Science and Technology Association, sits on the board of USC’s Viterbi Innovation Partners and serves as an advisor for USC’s Center for AI in Society++ (CAIS++). David received his Bachelors in Computer Engineering and Computer Science from the University of Southern California.

Asset specialization: Electronics and Semiconductor Manufacturing Supply Chain Assets

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidjeng/

Centrifuge forum handle: @Davidjeng

Name: James Chan

Bio: James is a Managing Director at Seabury Capital and CEO of one of their portfolio companies, Billboard TFX, a working capital fintech. He has over two decades experience in the structured finance and commodity markets including structuring, investment management across the capital structure and derivatives trading. Prior to joining Seabury Capital, James was Managing Director and Head of Trade Finance at the private credit fund, White Oak. His prior experience also includes MET Commodities, The Noble Group, Cheyne Capital, BlackRock, and Nomura. James received his BSc (hons) Biochemistry from Royal Holloway College, London and his MSc International Management from Kings College, London.

Asset specialization:

  • All direct lending/private credit products, both secured and unsecured including Term Debt, Trade and Structured Trade Finance products
  • All Structured and ABS products including Securitized and Whole Loan Pools
  • All Oil and Rate derivatives

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-chan-9442255/

Centrifuge forum handle: @JamesChan

Reviewers

Name: Chris Diamond

Chris works in Operations and Corporate Strategy at a stealth start-up focused on single-family rentals in NYC. Before that, he was at Better.com co-running the Capital Markets and Financial Products group and their corporate debt and warehouse finance totaling $6B+ of balance across 12 institutions. Chris worked as a portfolio manager at Fortress Invest Group, and was a vital member of the team that purchased New Penn, a mortgage originator. He also worked at Houlihan Lokey, focusing on portfolio valuations, frequently involving structured products, whole loans, and other illiquid credit instruments for financial institutions and alternative asset managers. He holds a B.A. from Lafayette College in Business and Economics.

Asset specialization:

  • Mortgage servicing rights
  • Whole loans, NPL (non-performing loans), RPL (re-performing loans), REO (real estate owned - assets awarded after a foreclosure process)
  • Unsecured consumer
  • Single Family Rental
  • Other real estate assets

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-diamond-84619419/

Centrifuge forum handle: @ChrisDiamond

Name: Erik Mayo

Bio: Erik is currently Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Terra Incognita Capital, a global opportunistic credit investment firm focused on specialty lender finance. He is an active participant in DeFi projects with the Sommelier and Paloma blockchains. Erik was a Founding Partner and Co-Portfolio Manager of Fintan Partners, making investments in strategies including distressed debt, structured credit, growth capital financing, receivables factoring, and private equity. Prior to that, Erik worked at Stanford Management Company as part of the two-person Absolute Return team managing $1B+, and at Lazard Asset Management and Bankers Trust. Erik earned a B.S. in Economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Asset specialization:

  • Trade Finance
  • Factoring
  • Revenue Based Finance
  • Charged Off Asset
    • Credit cards
    • Small business loans
    • Real estate
  • Single family real estate
  • Developed and Emerging Markets

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erikmayo/

Centrifuge forum handle: @Mayoe

Name: Hong Fan

Bio: Hong is a Structured Product Analyst at Brigade Capital Management, and he has 8 years experience in structured products and ABS. Before joining Brigade in 2020, Mr. Fan was employed as an ABS Desk Trading Strategist at Morgan Stanley. Mr. Fan started his career in 2014 at Moore Capital Management as a Consumer ABS Analyst and Quantitative Risk Analyst. Mr. Fan received a MSc in Quantitative Finance from Fordham University and a Bachelor of Economics from Southwestern University of Finance and Economics in China.

Asset Specialization:

  • Public ABS bond investment and trading. Both investment grade and sub investment grade
  • Private Consumer ABS investment
    • Forward Flow / Whole Loan transaction
    • Senior / Mezzanine Tranche Warehouse transaction
  • Major experiences of underlying collateral
    • Unsecured Consumer Loan
    • Subprime/Prime Auto Loan
    • Private Credit Card
    • Solar Loans / Leases
    • Small and Medium Enterprises Loans
    • Other Fintech Receivables

Blockchain / On-Chain Credit Related Experiences:

  • Personal Medium Hong Fan – Medium
    • Article on Centrifuge and Tinlake, digging into one pool (GIG economy) as case study
    • Article in collaboration with the Goldfinch team to explain how their platform works
  • Dune page for Goldfinch analysis
  • Running personal Ethereum full node

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/henryhongfan/

Centrifuge forum handle: @fanhong.123

Name: Jeremy Kim

Bio: Jeremy is a structured credit specialist with over a decade of experience in various aspects of structured credit, including originations, structuring, portfolio management, and analytics, across a broad range of asset classes. He is currently working with the END Labs team on bringing real world assets to DeFi in the form of structured credit transactions.

Asset specialization:

  • Unsecured consumer
  • Auto loans
  • Mortgages
  • Other esoteric assets

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremiahkim/

Centrifuge forum handle: @JeremyKim

Name: Sam Paderewski

Bio: Sam is currently a member of the Strategic Finance team at MakerDAO, focusing on the DAO’s Real World Asset effort. Sam was a CLO (collateral loan obligations - uses corporate loans) and CDO (collateralized debt obligations - mostly uses bonds and other debt instruments) analyst and trader at Hildene Capital, a structured credit hedge fund, where he also developed quantitative models and firm infrastructure. He was at Citigroup prior, where he worked on the CLO Structuring & Syndicate team, bringing CLOs to market through every step of the new issue process. He was also a salesperson on Citi’s institutional Investment Grade Credit team, focusing on IG corporate bonds, but also credit default swaps, high yield bonds, and credit indices. Sam graduated from Duke University with a B.A in Computer Science and a Certificate in Markets & Management.

Asset Specialization: Structured Credit (CDOs and CLOs)

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sam-paderewski-17027129/

Twitter: 0x_roo

Centrifuge Forum Handle: @roo

Name: Collin Erickson

Bio: Collin is a member of the investment team at Victory Park Capital Advisors, LCC, where he focuses on digital asset investing and private credit / special situations transactions. He is responsible for due diligence and financial analysis related to new investment opportunities and assists with portfolio monitoring and managing current investments. Previously, Collin was an investment banking analyst at Oppenheimer & Co. in New York, focusing on M&A and special situations. Mr. Erickson received a B.S. in business administration from Boston University’s Questrom School of Business.
Asset Specialization: Asset-backed loans

  • Consumer unsecured
  • Revenue-based
  • Small-to-medium business
  • Factoring/trade
  • Equipment Leasing
  • E-commerce aggregation
  • Mass tort / mass arbitration legal claims
  • Other Fintech receivables
  • Mezzanine/corporate loans
  • Convertible debt / structured equity investing

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/collinerickson/
Twitter: ericksoncc
Centrifuge forum handle: @collincerickson

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Can I join a team of experts or advisors? Over 20 years of experience in investment analysis. formerly Managing Partner at Jet Capital Partners. also extensive experience in the analysis of projects and businesses for obtaining loans for business development.

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Michael,

As a new member of the Centrifuge community, it is great to see initiatives like these come to fruition. Here are some initial questions I have:

  1. Is it possible to standardize a framework and template for ALL types of credit risk. Or do we need specialty “sub-categories” per say like real estate, auto, supply chain, etc.
  2. What resources will the credit group have access to and will the community have access to those resources also? For example, could community members submit their own review reports for the credit group to review?
  3. Will there be an educational component to the credit group? A big issue is the gap of knowledge between the Centrifuge community and the complexities of structured credit.
  4. How does the credit group plan on working together with the Centrifuge community?

These are all for now. Looking forward to watching how this evolves!

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Hi Mike! Thanks for taking the lead in the formation of the credit group and the introduction of the members. Great to see the second important group after the Governance Coordination Group in the Centrifuge ecosystem!

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If you are interested to become a member of the CCG, best to get in touch with @roollie to inquire about the requirements and I recommend to join the governance call on February 16 where the group will meet

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Thank you so much for information

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Looks like a great group! We are excited to interact with them and chat with them on the future governance call.

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I’m looking forward to contributing to the community and support Centrifuge’s vision of bringing the entire world of debt on-chain.

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Hi @ItsJake, thanks for your questions!

  1. The CG is starting work on this but in my personal opinion, there are a few ways to skin this. There will always be very specific ways of assessing risks specific to each asset class, but the template could be a good way to get us started. For esoteric asset classes, I can envision the CG adding sections specific to those only
  2. I’d imagine that the CG would have to sign NDAs with potential issuers in order to get access to certain documentation and assess risks. I think community members could potentially do so, but I’ll leave it to the CG to decide on exact processes, that should evolve as we go
  3. Yes! This is a big part of the process. We are not imagining 200 page long documents with many finance acronyms, but a more digestible and accessible document that a person without too much of a finance background could understand and ask questions on
  4. I think the exact interaction is TBD but at a minimum, they will publish risk reports on the forum, answer questions that the community and our partners might have, etc.

Hope that helps, and please keep questions coming if you have more!

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Super helpful, thank you!

Looking forward to watching how it evolves.

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Looks like a great time! Glad to see this initiative get going - a trailblazer in RWAs.

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Adding a new member:

Name: Collin Erickson

Bio: Collin is a member of the investment team at Victory Park Capital Advisors, LCC, where he focuses on digital asset investing and private credit / special situations transactions. He is responsible for due diligence and financial analysis related to new investment opportunities and assists with portfolio monitoring and managing current investments. Previously, Collin was an investment banking analyst at Oppenheimer & Co. in New York, focusing on M&A and special situations. Mr. Erickson received a B.S. in business administration from Boston University’s Questrom School of Business.
Asset Specialization: Asset-backed loans

  • Consumer unsecured

  • Revenue-based

  • Small-to-medium business

  • Factoring/trade

  • Equipment Leasing

  • E-commerce aggregation

  • Mass tort / mass arbitration legal claims

  • Other Fintech receivables

  • Mezzanine/corporate loans

  • Convertible debt / structured equity investing

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/collinerickson/
Twitter: ericksoncc
Centrifuge forum handle: @collincerickson

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Evening
Some of the questions from the Governance Call:

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@SYZ
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Please disregard Q2 re: securities and SEC. I found the info we needed re: Reg D in the Investor onboard docs. Thank you.

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Governance call #14 with introduction of Credit Group members was uploaded on YouTube:

That was a great call and very important Group for all Centrifuge Community :innocent:

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Thanks for sharing the link to the governance call. In summing up the call it looks like the creation of the Credit group with it’s expert members from TradFi can (and most likely will) be a game changer for the protocol :clap:

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An excellent team that will serve the Centrifuge community well.

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Dear All,

Mike here, the first facilitator of the Credit Group. I am writing to formally nominate @mark_hergen as the next facilitator of our Credit Group. As you may recall, in my initial posts, I mentioned that I planned to hand over this role to a community member. As the first facilitator, my focus was on forming the group and establishing a high-level framework for moving forward. I am pleased to report that we have made significant progress in these areas, with a talented group of credit professionals assembled and a charter that is starting to be formed.

I am confident that @mark_hergen will be an excellent leader for the group going forward. He brings extensive experience in both traditional finance and Web3, which will be valuable as we continue to explore the intersection of these fields. I am excited to see where he takes the group and look forward to supporting him in any way I can.

I will now turn it over to @mark_hergen to introduce himself further. I want to express my gratitude to the community for the trust and confidence they placed in me during my time as facilitator. It has been an honor to serve in this role, and I am excited to see what the future holds for our group.

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Thanks Mike for being an important part of the Centrifuge Credit Group, for pushing it forward and building the group from the scratch! :clap:
At the same time I am looking forward to see the introduction and the background of @mark_hergen here and especially to learn more about his plans in establishing the Credit Group as a crucial part of the Centrifuge DAO and making it future-proof. :wave:

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