Clarus Capital hired Jake Skivington to join its sponsor origination effort, building on its successful strategy of supporting middle market private equity firms. Skivington will be located in the firm’s New York office.

Prior to joining Clarus, Skivington was a managing director on the leveraged finance team at Guggenheim Securities, where he led the origination effort for key verticals across financial sponsors and corporate clients. Previously, he served in the investment banking division of Jefferies and was an integral member of the origination team that completed buyout and other financings totaling over $20 billion.

“We are excited to have Jake join the team, which should only enhance the high-quality experience sponsors have come to expect when working with Clarus. Consistently executing complex transactions for sophisticated private equity firms and their portfolio companies is not a universal skillset and requires organizational commitment and deep subject expertise,” Steve O’Leary, CEO of Clarus, said. “Clarus has demonstrated its ability to successfully execute sponsor-backed transactions since inception. I am confident that Jake will continue to build on our already strong momentum.”

“I look forward to bringing my middle market private equity experience and relationships to Clarus’ unique leveraged equipment finance offering,” Skivington said. “I understand how important it is for sponsors to partner with capital providers that they can rely upon to execute efficiently. A customized equipment finance facility can fill a variety of needs for many different sponsor investment situations throughout the investment life cycle, especially given the recent credit market dislocations.”

“Jake’s addition extends the strategic vision we had for the platform when we originally assessed the market opportunity,” Tim Conway, chairman and co-founder of Clarus, said. “We have a purpose-built, best-in-class team that blends its equipment finance and cash flow lending roots to provide a consistent, reliable source of liquidity to some incredibly high-quality sponsors, many of whom we have partnered with for decades.”