January 12, 2025
PPM America, Inc. (PPM) today announced the addition of a seasoned emerging market debt (EMD) team from Western Asset Management. The team includes Mark Hughes, senior managing director, portfolio manager and co-head of EM debt, Kevin Ritter, senior managing director, portfolio manager and co-head of EM debt, Matthew Graves, managing director and portfolio manager/analyst and Kevin Zhang, vice president and analyst.
The team averages 22 years of investment experience and have worked together for nearly a decade with portfolio managers having worked together since 2009. “We are excited to expand our capabilities in emerging market debt,” said Jeff Seaver, PPM’s Head of Global Distribution. “Emerging market debt is a compelling extension of our robust fixed income capabilities, and we are proud to attract top-tier talent who share our commitment to deliver outstanding results for our clients.”
Marty Boulanger, current PPM managing director and credit analyst covering sovereign debt with a focus on emerging markets, will join the team. Boulanger has 14 years of investment experience and joined PPM in 2018. The team will report to Ogechi Nwachukwu, Deputy Chief Investment Officer, and will primarily be
based in Los Angeles, California.
“We are thrilled to join PPM, an organization that values a team-based culture and shares our focus on fundamental, bottom-up credit-intensive research,” said Hughes. “As a portfolio manager, I look forward to helping drive growth at PPM and creating value for clients,” added Ritter.
This strategic investment in talent is consistent with Jackson Financial Inc.’s (JFI) commitment to growing PPM’s investment capabilities and assets under management. PPM is an indirect, wholly owned subsidiary of JFI, a publicly traded company.
Pictured from left to right: Marty Boulanger, Mark Hughes, Kevin Ritter, Kevin Zhang and Matthew Graves.
About PPM America
Our mission is to be seen by clients and their advisors as a consistently reliable partner to help them achieve their long-term value goals.
PPM is a US-based institutional asset manager with $83.51 billion in assets under management as of June 30, 2025.* Established in Chicago in 1990, PPM exists to consistently support institutional clients in achieving their long-term value goals. We offer our Midwestern mentality of hard work, straight talk, full transparency and humility. Our success is supported by a team-based culture that encourages debate, collaboration and consistency. At the center of our belief is the fact that our best ideas to date have and can come from any team member anywhere in our firm. We believe the success of our investment culture is best demonstrated by the strong retention of our clients and investment professionals.
* AUM includes committed but unfunded capital for PPM’s private equity and commercial real estate businesses. AUM includes both securities issued by PPM CLO vehicles held by PPM separately managed account clients and the underlying collateral assets of the CLO vehicles managed by PPM.
Past performance is no guarantee of future results. There can be no assurance that any particular individual will be involved in the management of any portfolio for any period of time, if at all. Furthermore, there can be no assurance that any PPM professionals presented herein will remain with PPM or that past experience or performance of such professionals serves as an indicator of his or her performance. Forward-looking statements are subject to uncertainties that could cause actual developments and results to differ materially from the expectations expressed. The opinions and views expressed herein are not intended to be relied upon as a prediction or forecast of actual future events or performance, guarantee of future results, recommendations or advice. Opinions expressed herein are current as of the date indicated and are subject to change without notice.
