Square Circle

Adam Heppner, the founder and managing partner, leads all investment decisions. Heppner was previously co-head of structured finance at Goldman Sachs, where he spent over two decades building and managing complex asset-backed and private credit transactions. The firm operates with a lean team, centralizing investment committee authority in Heppner.

The firm pursues a private credit and special-situations strategy focused on asset-heavy, cash-flowing sectors. Target areas include real estate credit, infrastructure debt, aviation leasing, and renewable-energy project finance. The strategy emphasizes bespoke, bilateral loans where sourcing complexity reduces competition from broadly syndicated lenders.

Square Circle is predominantly a credit investor, structuring first-lien, asset-backed, and structured lease facilities. Where a transaction warrants, the firm may take equity-like kickers or warrants alongside its debt position, but the core mandate is fixed-income-oriented with an emphasis on principal protection through hard-asset collateral.

The firm raised its initial capital from a network of family offices and institutional LPs who had previously backed Heppner-led transactions during his Goldman Sachs tenure. Square Circle does not publicly disclose its total AUM or the identities of its limited partners. The vehicle is structured as a single commingled drawdown fund rather than a platform of separate funds.

Heppner's two-decade institutional origination network at Goldman Sachs gives Square Circle access to deal flow that typically stays inside large bank structured-finance desks. The firm designs and holds bespoke credit facilities that banks continue to originate but no longer retain on balance sheet, occupying a structural middle ground between direct lending funds and bank special-situations units.

Square Circle primarily acts as a principal, originating and holding its own positions. The firm does not publicly market a co-investment program or club-deal structure. Its model relies on internal sourcing rather than aggregating participations from other managers, though it may syndicate portions of large facilities when balance-sheet diversification requires it.

The firm invests primarily in North America and select Western European markets. Confirmed deal activity includes aviation leasing facilities with European transport lessors and renewable-energy project finance involving North American developers. The strategy does not currently extend to emerging or frontier markets.