Thad D. Johnson
Managing Director

Thad Johnson is a Managing Director of the Company with responsibilities for originating middle market lending activities serving Midwest and West Coast private equity clients. He is based in the Company’s Chicago office.

Mr. Johnson most recently served as a Managing Director of Merrill Lynch Capital ("MLC"), the middle market leveraged finance business for Merrill Lynch and Co. He founded and managed the Syndications and Capital Markets Team for MLC. While at M LC, his team was principally responsible for pricing, structuring and distributing leveraged finance and asset based transactions for MLC’s private equity clients. The Team successfully distributed over $14.3 billion of senior and junior credit facilities across 176 deals since inception in 2002. Mr. Johnson also served on the credit committee for deals requiring distribution. Prior to joining MLC, Mr. Johnson was a Director in the Acquisition Finance group of Fleet Securities focusing on originating leveraged loans from private equity sponsors. Additional experience at Fleet Securities included six years in Fleet’s and Loan Syndications group where he focused on originating, structuring and executing leveraged cash flow and asset based loans for financial sponsors and corporate issuers spanning a broad range of industries. Prior to the merger with Fleet, he was a Director in BancBoston Robertson Stephens’ Leveraged Finance group. He joined the Leveraged Finance group in 1995 after seven years as a relationship manager in several lending units, most notably the Media & Communications and the Asset Based/Leveraged Lending division.

Mr. Johnson holds a Bachelor of Art’s degree in Economics and Spanish from Tufts University.


101 North Wacker Drive, Suite 607
Chicago, IL 60606
P 312.525.8136
F 312.525.8134
tjohnson@newstarfin.com