Northleaf Capital Partners, the private-markets investor who participated in the acquisition of Core Services Corp. by Syntax Systems in April of this year, has opened an office in Montreal. Kathleen Ffrench has joined the firm as Vice President, Sales, based in Northleaf’s newly-established Montreal office.

“We are delighted to welcome Kathleen to the Northleaf team. She will play a key role in the continued growth of our global private markets investment programs,” said Stephen Foote, Global Head of Sales at Northleaf. “Kathleen’s experience is highly complementary to that of the current team and will enhance our ability to serve investors and their advisors in Quebec and Eastern Canada.”

Kathleen joins Northleaf from Sun Life Institutional Investments, where she was Head of Institutional Sales for Eastern Canada, responsible for developing and managing relationships with institutional investors and consultants. Previously, she worked at Standard Life Investments in sales and consultant relations roles. Kathleen began her career at Mercer, working in the firm’s investment consulting practice. She holds a Bachelor of Arts (Honours in Economics) with distinction from Concordia University.

It’s been a busy year for Northleaf, with the successful establishment of its global private credit program in 2016, the closing of its second OECDfocused infrastructure fund at its hard cap of $950 million earlier this year, and the recent launch of the next generation of its global private equity funds, Northleaf Private Equity VII (NPE VII) and Northleaf Secondary Partners II (NSP II). NPE VII will invest in niche segments to build a diversified global portfolio of mid-market buyout and growth-oriented fund investments, opportunistic secondary investments and direct co-investments. NSP II pursues a differentiated investment strategy that takes advantage of current market dynamics and deal flow to provide accelerated exposure to private company investments through participation in private equity secondary transactions globally.

“A Montreal office extends Northleaf’s global office network, allowing us to expand our capabilities to provide our investors in Quebec and Eastern Canada with access to highly differentiated investment strategies across private equity, infrastructure and private credit globally,” said Jeff Pentland, Managing Director of Northleaf. “The formal establishment of our Montreal office also reflects our ongoing commitment to and confidence in the private markets opportunities in the region and provides a local base from which to continue our longstanding and successful investment activities there.”

Northleaf’s team now numbers more than 90 professionals, and the addition of the Montreal presence complements Northleaf’s existing offices in Toronto, London, Chicago and Menlo Park.