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Cedar Hill Capital Partners
Cedar Hill Capital Partners was established in 2001 by David S. Winter and David E.
Cedar Hill Capital Partners
Cedar Hill Capital Partners was established in 2001 by David S. Winter and David E. Shapiro, both alumni of Och-Ziff Capital Management, where Winter served as a Senior Managing Director. The firm launched with a focus on special situations and event-driven credit, a mandate that has since expanded into a multi-strategy credit platform. Unlike many hedge-fund spinouts that emulate their predecessor's structure, Cedar Hill deliberately built a hybrid — operating direct-lending and private-credit vehicles alongside a hedge fund, giving the firm flexibility to hold assets across market cycles. The firm's strategy centers on complex credit and special situations, with active deployment across distressed debt, rescue financing, litigation finance, and structured equity. Cedar Hill writes senior secured loans, mezzanine debt, and preferred equity to middle-market companies facing liquidity gaps, operational turnarounds, or litigation-driven valuation dislocations. Its litigation-finance arm, led by a dedicated team, provides non-recourse capital to law firms and claimants in commercial disputes. The geographic footprint spans North America and Western Europe, with particular activity in the United States and the United Kingdom. The firm's flexible mandate allows it to pivot between public and private credit markets as dislocations arise. Cedar Hill operates from New York, with additional investment professionals historically based in London. The firm does not publicly disclose assets under management, though regulatory filings and market participants place its aggregate capital base in a range consistent with a mid-sized, partner-led credit manager. In early 2023, Winter and Shapiro restructured the firm's flagship hedge fund to extend lock-up terms, reinforcing the permanent-capital philosophy that distinguishes its approach from quarterly-redemption peers. The firm also maintains a philanthropic vehicle, the Cedar Hill Foundation, which supports educational and community initiatives in the New York metro area. The structural differentiator is Cedar Hill's hybrid architecture: a private-credit direct-lending engine operating inside the same partnership as an event-driven hedge fund. This allows the firm to provide bridge-to-sale financing through the hedge fund while holding restructured equity in private vehicles, capturing upside that single-strategy shops leave on the table. The partnership structure, with Winter and Shapiro maintaining day-to-day investment oversight after more than 20 years, creates continuity rare among credit managers of similar scale.
General information
Firm type
Asset Manager
Year founded
2001
AUM
$500M – $1.5B (Altss estimate)
Location
Region
North America
Country
United States
City
New York
Corporate office
New York, NY, United States
Principals
David S. Winter
Founder & Managing Partner
David E. Shapiro
Managing Partner
Sector focus
Frequently asked questions
Who runs investment decisions at Cedar Hill Capital Partners?
Founder David S. Winter and Managing Partner David E. Shapiro jointly oversee the firm's investment decisions, a partnership that dates back to their time together at Och-Ziff Capital Management before founding Cedar Hill in 2001. Both remain actively involved in portfolio construction and credit committee approvals. The firm's litigation-finance practice operates under dedicated senior investment professionals reporting into the partnership.
How does Cedar Hill source its deal flow?
Cedar Hill sources opportunities through a network of restructuring advisors, law firms, turnaround consultants, and direct relationships with middle-market companies. The firm's two-decade track record in special situations — particularly in distressed and rescue-financing scenarios — generates repeat inbound from bankruptcy counsel and interim CFOs who have worked with Cedar Hill on prior restructurings. Its litigation-finance pipeline is built on deep relationships with commercial-litigation firms in the US and UK.
Is Cedar Hill structured as a hedge fund, a private-credit fund, or both?
Cedar Hill operates a hybrid structure that includes both a hedge fund vehicle and private-credit direct-lending vehicles. This architecture allows the firm to underwrite bridge financing and event-driven trades through the hedge fund while warehousing restructured equity or longer-duration credit exposures in private drawdown funds. In early 2023, the firm extended lock-up terms on its flagship hedge fund to better align with the holding periods its credit strategy requires.
What types of investments does Cedar Hill explicitly avoid?
Cedar Hill has historically avoided plain-vanilla investment-grade corporate credit and deeply subordinated equity in early-stage ventures. The firm's mandate is built around complexity premiums — it targets situations where conventional lenders withdraw, not routine syndicated-loan markets. The firm also stays away from commodity-driven sectors and industries with binary regulatory risk profiles, preferring situations where legal or operational complexity can be analyzed and priced.
How does Cedar Hill's litigation-finance strategy work?
Cedar Hill provides non-recourse funding to law firms and corporate claimants pursuing commercial litigation, typically in disputes where the claim value can be modeled against legal costs and timeline. The firm takes an assignment of a portion of the potential recovery in exchange for funding litigation expenses. This strategy operates as a dedicated vertical within the firm, with its own underwriting team and a portfolio diversified across jurisdictions and claim types.
What is the Cedar Hill Foundation and how is it separated from the investment business?
The Cedar Hill Foundation is the firm's philanthropic vehicle, supporting educational access and community-development programs in the New York metropolitan area. It operates as a separate legal entity with its own governance, funded by partner contributions from the investment business. The foundation does not invest alongside the firm's commercial vehicles, maintaining a strict separation between charitable and for-profit activities.
Does Cedar Hill participate in fund commitments to other GPs, or only direct deals?
Cedar Hill's primary activity is direct deal-making — originating and underwriting its own credit investments rather than allocating to external managers. The firm does make selective co-investments alongside other credit managers in larger restructuring or rescue-financing syndicates, but these are sourced directly by Cedar Hill's team rather than through blind-pool fund commitments. The litigation-finance vertical has occasionally partnered with other litigation funders on large commercial claims to manage single-case concentration.
Profile maintained by Altss using OSINT (open-source intelligence), regulatory filings, licensed data partners, and verified direct submissions. Read the methodology. Last updated: . Continuous refresh with full update cycles at least every 30 days.
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