Highland Credit Strategies Fund, Prospect Street® High Income Portfolio Inc., Prospect Street® Income Shares Inc. and Highland Distressed Opportunities, Inc.
Highland Capital Management, L.P. (“Highland”) announced changes, effective today, to the portfolio management teams of Highland Credit Strategies Fund (NYSE: HCF), Prospect Street® High Income Portfolio Inc. (NYSE: PHY), Prospect Street® Income Shares Inc. (NYSE: CNN) and Highland Distressed Opportunities, Inc. (NYSE: HCD). In connection with these changes, Brad Borud has assumed the role of Chief Investment Officer—Retail Products at Highland.
Highland Credit Strategies Fund will be managed by Mark Okada, Kurtis Plumer and Brad Borud. Messrs. Okada and Plumer are currently members of the portfolio management team for Highland Credit Strategies Fund.
Prospect Street® High Income Portfolio Inc. and Prospect Street® Income Shares Inc. will each be managed by Brad Borud and R. Joseph Dougherty. Mr. Dougherty is currently a member of the board of directors of Prospect Street® High Income Portfolio Inc. and Prospect Street® Income Shares Inc. and a Partner and head of Retail Products at Highland.
Highland Distressed Opportunities, Inc. will be managed by Patrick Daugherty, Brad Borud and Greg Stuecheli. Mr. Daugherty is currently a member of the portfolio management team for Highland Distressed Opportunities, Inc. Mr. Stuecheli is a Senior Portfolio Manager at Highland.
Detailed biographical information of each of the portfolio managers is provided below:
Mark Okada. Mr. Okada is a Founder and Chief Investment Officer of Highland. He is responsible for overseeing Highland’s investment activities for its various strategies and has over 20 years of experience in the credit markets. Prior to co-founding Highland, Mr. Okada served as Manager of Fixed Income for the GIC subsidiary of Protective Life Insurance (one of the first non-bank entrants into the syndicated loan market) from 1990 to 1993, where he was primarily responsible for the bank loan portfolio and other risk assets. From 1986 to 1990, Mr. Okada served as Vice President at Hibernia National Bank, managing a portfolio of high-yield loans in excess of $1 billion. Mr. Okada is a Director of NexBank and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Common Grace Ministries, Inc. Mr. Okada is an honors graduate of the University of California Los Angeles with degrees in Economics and Psychology. He has earned the right to use the Chartered Financial Analyst designation.
Kurtis S. Plumer. Mr. Plumer is a Partner and Senior Portfolio Manager at Highland. Mr. Plumer has over 14 years of experience in distressed, high-yield bond and leveraged loan products. Prior to joining Highland in July 1999, Mr. Plumer was a Distressed High-Yield Bond Trader at Lehman Brothers in New York, where he managed a portfolio of approximately $250 million invested in global distressed securities. While at Lehman, he also traded emerging market sovereign bonds. Prior to joining Lehman Brothers, Mr. Plumer was a Corporate Finance Banker at NationsBanc Capital Markets, Inc. (now Bank of America Capital Markets, Inc.) where he focused on M&A and financing transactions for the bank’s clients. Mr. Plumer received an MBA in Strategy and Finance from the Kellogg School at Northwestern University, and a BBA in Economics and Finance from Baylor University. Mr. Plumer has earned the right to use the Chartered Financial Analyst designation.
Brad Borud. Mr. Borud is a Partner, Senior Trader and Chief Investment Officer—Retail Products at Highland. Prior to his current duties, Mr. Borud served as a Senior Trader and Co-Director of Portfolio Management for Highland from 2003 to 2008, as a Portfolio Manager and Team Leader from 2001 to 2003, as a Portfolio Manager from 1998 to 2001, and as a Portfolio Analyst from 1996 to 1998. As a Portfolio Manager, Mr. Borud covered a wide range of industries, including wireline telecommunications, wireless telecommunications, telecommunication equipment manufacturers, multi-channel video and media. Prior to joining Highland in November 1996, Mr. Borud worked as a Global Finance Analyst in the Corporate Finance Group at NationsBank from 1995 to 1996 where he was involved in the originating, structuring, modeling and credit analysis of leveraged transactions for large corporate accounts in the Southwest region of the United States. In 1994, Mr. Borud served at Conseco Capital Management as an Analyst Intern in the Fixed Income Research Department, following the transportation and energy sectors. Mr. Borud has a BS in Business Finance from Indiana University.
R. Joseph Dougherty. Mr. Dougherty is a Partner and Senior Portfolio Manager at Highland and heads its Retail Products business unit. He serves as Portfolio Manager, Senior Vice President, Trustee and/or Director of Highland’s NYSE-listed funds and 1940 Act registered funds. He also serves as Portfolio Manager for Highland’s sub-advised closed-end funds.
