Merced Capital Background and Ownership
Merced Capital, L.P. (“Merced Capital” or the “Firm”) was formed in 1988 by three executives
from the Cargill Inc. financial trading business. The three founders retired in 1998, 2005 and 2013.
Merced Capital is owned by the senior members of management of Merced Capital, none of whom
owns 25% or more of the Firm. The general partners of the various Merced Capital-managed funds
described below are also owned by members of Merced Capital’s senior management. Merced
Capital provides discretionary advisory service to privately offered pooled investment vehicles (the
“Funds”) that invest in a variety of asset types. See Item 4 – Advisory Business - Investment
Philosophy and Strategy below.
The Funds are limited partnerships and other investment vehicles that are exempt from registration
under the U.S. Investment Company Act of 1940, as amended, and whose interests will not be
registered under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the “Securities Act”).
In addition, Merced Capital provides certain administrative, management and advisory services
with respect to the ongoing management and operations of other assets held through one or more
private investment vehicles (collectively, “Other Accounts”). The Funds and Other Accounts are
sometimes individually referred to as a “Client,” and collectively as “Clients.”
Merced Capital manages each Client based on specific investment objectives, strategies, investment
guidelines and restrictions set forth in the offering documents, partnership agreement, limited
liability company operating agreement, and/or investment management agreements applicable to
that Client (as amended and supplemented from time to time) (collectively, the “Governing
Documents”). Investment restrictions are permitted to be waived in certain cases in accordance
with the Governing Documents. See Item 8 - Methods of Analysis, Investment Strategies and Risk
of Loss.
All of the Fund general partners are owned and controlled by senior management of Merced
Capital, and all have entered into written management agreements with Merced Capital pursuant
to which Merced Capital provides investment advisory services to the Funds and other Clients of
which they are general partner or managing member. (References in this brochure to the “general
partner” of a Client includes the managing member of such client where applicable.) None of the
Fund general partners, other than Merced Capital, has any employees.
Interests in Clients are not offered to the public generally and Merced Capital and its Client
historically have not engaged in a general solicitation.
Merced Capital does not provide investment advice to separately managed accounts nor does it
provide investment advice to individual investors in any Client (each, an “Investor”). In
accordance with common industry practice, a Fund or its general partner may from time to
time enter into a “side letter” or similar agreement with an investor pursuant to which the
Fund or its general partner grants the investor specific rights, benefits or privileges that are
not generally made available to all Fund investors. The Firm has entered into agreements,
commonly known as “side letters,” with certain investors under which the Firm has agreed to waive
or modify certain investment terms for those Clients, without obtaining the consent of any other
Clients or underlying investors. Such agreements typically provide more favorable terms with
respect to (i) opting out of particular investments; (ii) reporting obligations of the Client; (iii)
transfers to affiliates; (iv) co-investment opportunities; (v) withdrawal rights due to adverse tax or
regulatory events; and (i) consent rights to certain Governing Document amendments.
Investment Philosophy and Strategy
Merced Capital focuses on trading in debt and equity securities and other obligations of financially
distressed entities, high yield, below investment-grade or unrated debt securities, leveraged loans,
special and control situation transactions, and other trades deemed appropriate by Merced Capital.
In addition, Clients invest in real estate, aircraft and aircraft leases, equipment, renewable energy,
insurance-linked securities, natural resources, and other types of assets. The Governing Documents
typically give Merced Capital wide discretion to determine the investment strategy for the Clients,
except in cases where the Client was established to pursue a very specific strategy. The investment
strategy and objective of each Client is set forth in the Client’s Governing Documents. Merced
Capital may expand its areas of expertise in response to market conditions or other external factors.
A brief explanation of the primary strategies employed by Merced Capital follows:
▪ Financially distressed entities are those financially troubled entities on the verge or in the
process of a major financial restructuring and involve deteriorating as well as defaulted
securities. Restructuring of distressed entities is the process of re-balancing assets and
liabilities in a more financially prudent fashion. This process can take place either through
a formal bankruptcy proceeding or restructuring outside of a court’s supervision. This
process creates opportunities to trade in different types of securities or obligations with
different risk-reward profiles at different times in an entity’s restructuring cycle. This
cycle can last anywhere from a month to five years or longer.
▪ High yield, below investment-grade or unrated securities involve situations in which there
is speculative credit risk and where the debtor is unlikely to obtain credit from traditional
sources, such as banks.
▪ “Special situation” transactions are those assets that may be acquired at a discount to their
inherent value. Typically, these situations arise because the assets lack transparency or
liquidity. Some of these trades may arise as a result of Merced Capital’s role as advisor to
other entities. Trades in this area include equipment, real estate and non-operator interests
in oil and natural gas wells.
In the past the Clients have not used borrowed money (leverage) at the Client level, and have used
leverage at the asset-level on a highly selective basis in limited circumstances (for example, in
leveraged aircraft sale-leaseback transactions or commercial property acquisitions). However, this
policy is continuously reviewed, and the Clients may employ leverage of Client capital in the future.
In addition, to the extent the Clients own and control private operating companies, those companies
may use debt as a part of their capital structure. The Clients are permitted to engage in short selling
of securities, which involves borrowing securities and then selling them.
A Client’s activities include, but are not limited to purchasing, short selling or spread trading any
or all of the securities within different companies’ capital structure. These securities may be
publicly or privately traded.
Merced Capital has traditionally limited the number of trades made outside the United States and,
accordingly, the Clients have incurred limited foreign exchange risk. Certain Clients are not
precluded from trading in foreign assets or from incurring foreign exchange risk – and do currently
invest in foreign real estate, operating and financial assets Merced Capital employs various
strategies to hedge foreign exchange risk, including entering into forward purchase contracts with
respect to currencies in which investments are denominated.
Conflicts of Interest
While Merced Capital believes that its interests, and the interests of its other affiliates, with respect
to the success of the Clients are aligned with the interests of the Investors, it is possible that conflicts
of interest between the Client and Merced Capital or its affiliates
will arise.
Merced Capital, its affiliates, and their respective members, managers, directors, officers, partners,
shareholders, employees and agents may exercise investment responsibility, or otherwise engage,
directly or indirectly, in any other business, irrespective of whether any such business is similar to,
or identical with, the business of the Clients, which may include purchasing, selling, holding or
otherwise dealing with investments that would be suitable for the Clients. Merced Capital, its
affiliates, and their respective members, general partners, managers, directors, officers, partners,
shareholders, employees and agents manage multiple Clients that have overlapping investment
mandates. In addition, a Client is permitted to take a position that is adverse to the interests of
another Client.
Merced Capital and its principals and personnel are in no way prohibited from spending, and intend
to spend, substantial business time in connection with other businesses and activities, including,
but not limited to, managing investments, advising or managing vehicles or accounts whose
investment objectives are the same as or overlap with those of the Clients, participating in actual
or potential investments of the Clients, providing consulting, M&A, structuring or financial
advisory services, including with respect to actual, contemplated or potential investments of the
Clients or acting as a director, officer or creditors’ committee member of, adviser to or participant
in, any corporation, partnership, trust or other business entity.
Merced Capital and its principals and personnel are permitted to, in their sole and absolute
discretion, engage in any other business and furnish asset management and advisory services to
Clients with overlapping investment mandates and which may own securities or other investments
of the same class, or which are the same type, as other Clients’ investments. Merced Capital and
its principals and personnel shall be free, in their sole discretion, to make recommendations to
others, or effect transactions on behalf of themselves or for others, which may be the same as or
different from those recommended or effected with respect to the Clients, or offer certain
investments to Clients that it or they manage or advise concurrently with or in addition to offering
those investments to the Clients.
No Investor has any right to participate in any of these activities or to the income or profits derived
from these activities. The records of any personal accounts will not be made available to Investors.
A Client may, in Merced Capital’s sole and absolute discretion, require the services of a prime
broker for certain investments. The Firm has selected prime brokers (the “Prime Brokers”) for each
Client, as required. If Merced Capital selects a Prime Broker and custodians, the Firm will seek to
obtain best price and best execution and will take into account such relevant factors as (i) price, (ii)
the Prime Broker’s and custodian’s facilities, reputation, reliability, creditworthiness and financial
responsibility, (iii) research and other services provided by such Prime Broker and custodian to the
Firm and (iv) ancillary services such as capital introduction. Accordingly, Merced Capital is
permitted to, in its sole and absolute discretion, cause a Client to pay a Prime Broker and custodian
that provides brokerage or research services (either directly or through third-party relationships) an
amount of commission or transaction cost in excess of that which another Prime Broker and
custodian would have charged, if the Firm determines in good faith that such commission or
transaction cost is reasonable in relation to the value of brokerage, research or other services
provided.
The Clients are not required to allocate either a stated dollar or stated percentage of its transactions
to any Prime Broker and custodian for any minimum time period, and will review such relationships
from time to time.
The existence of incentive compensation may create an incentive for Merced Capital and its
affiliates to approve and cause the Clients to make riskier or more speculative investments than it
would otherwise make in the absence of such performance-based compensation. In addition, the
terms of the incentive compensation could give Merced Capital and its affiliates an incentive to
make determinations regarding the timing and structure of realization transactions that are not
applicable to the interests of the Investors.
Allocation, Aggregation and Brokerage
Because Merced Capital manages multiple Clients, Merced Capital and its affiliates, and their
respective members, managers, directors, officers, partners, shareholders, employees and agents
may advise one or more of the Clients to invest in the same assets or asset class. To the extent a
particular investment is suitable for more than one Client, Merced Capital uses good faith efforts
to allocate such investments among the Funds in a fair and reasonable manner, and in accordance
with its allocation policy. A copy of Merced Capital’s allocation policy is available to Investors
upon request. As a general rule, if two or more Clients have substantially similar or overlapping
investment objectives and strategies and other factors being equal, allocation of a particular position
will be based upon the relative size of the Clients. However, Merced Capital also take into account
any one or more of the following factors in allocating investments among Clients:
▪ Client’s investment objective and strategies (determined by reference to the
investment objectives and strategies outlined in Governing Documents);
▪ Client’s tax status, and tax status of Investors;
▪ any restrictions placed on a Client’s portfolio under its Governing Documents or
by virtue of federal or state law (such as the Employee Retirement Income Security
Act of 1974, as amended);
▪ total portfolio invested position;
▪ available capital and available cash in the Client, taking into account any
anticipated subscriptions and redemptions and any other reasonably foreseeable
cash requirements of the Client;
▪ existing exposure in the Client to issuer or to issuer’s industry;
▪ nature of the security or asset to be allocated, including the liquidity of the asset
and the availability of reliable price information;
▪ size of available position;
▪ supply or demand for a security at a given price level;
▪ the expected holding period of an investment in relation to a Client’s investment
and harvest period;
▪ current market conditions; and
▪ any other information determined by Merced Capital to be relevant to the fair
allocation of investments.
From time to time, Merced Capital may aggregate Client orders for the purchase or sale of
securities. Merced Capital will generally follow the guidelines set forth below in aggregating
orders for securities:
▪ no Client will be favored over any other Client;
▪ each Client that participates in an aggregated order will participate at the average
share price for all Merced Capital’s transactions in that security on a given business
day and transaction costs will be shared pro rata based on each Client’s
participation in the transaction;
▪ if the aggregated order is filled in its entirety, it will be allocated among Client s
in accordance with Merced Capital’s allocation policy described above;
▪ if the aggregated order is partially filled, it will be allocated among Clients pro rata
(i.e., taking into account the relative size of each Client account to which it is to be
allocated) and in accordance with Merced Capital’s allocation policy described
above;
Assets Under Management
As of December 31, 2023, Merced Capital managed approximately $635,877,013 in regulatory
assets on a discretionary basis. Merced Capital does not manage any assets on a non-discretionary
basis.