Barclays head of credit restructuring in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Jonathan Conway, has ditched the banking giant in favor of KKR’s Pillarstone business, which advises banks in managing non-core and underperforming assets. 

Jonathan will help expand the company, which was started last year with plans to take advantage of the $2.2 trillion of unwanted or underperforming assets on European lenders’ balance sheets, according to Bloomberg.

KKR itself had a poor Q1, losing $0.65/share. A 19% Q1 drop in the shares of a single investment—payment processor First Data, which KKR owns a big piece of after taking it public in October—cut KKR's profits by about $300M by itself.

KKR and its private equity peers have expanded into new businesses like lending and advisory as banks pulled back over the last decade. European lenders, including Barclays, want to dispose of unwanted assets to boost profitability and satisfy new higher capital retention requirements. [Bloomberg]