Michael Phillips

Head of Credit Special Opportunities at Teacher Retirement System of Texas

Speaker

Michael Phillips is Head of Credit for the Special Opportunities group at the $190bn Teacher Retirement System of Texas. The Special Opportunities group seeks to access a variety of complex, unique and opportunistic investments across multiple asset classes, industries and geographies. Mr. Phillips oversees approximately $8bn in assets and innovative platforms. This includes Texas Debt Capital, a partnership with CIFC Asset Management that invests in leveraged loans backed by TRS’s private equity partners and other sponsors, and issues private label CLOs for the Trust.

Before joining TRS, Mr. Phillips was a performing and distressed credit investor at Highland Capital, which included serving on creditor’s committees in several high profile restructuring situations. Prior to that, he held senior investing and capital markets positions at Oaktree Capital and Nordic Capital in London. In the latter role he led financing negotiations for various LBO transactions across the US, UK, Germany and Scandinavia. Mr. Phillips began his career as an investment banker in the European Leveraged Finance group at Barclays Capital.

Mr. Phillips graduated with an MA in Music from the University of Cambridge, specializing in quantitative analysis and experimental psychology. He is a CFA charterholder.