Team
Joelle Wyser-Pratte
Ms. Joelle Wyser-Pratte is the Founding Partner at OCP Capital, LLC. Her experience in the securities industry spans over eighteen years. In 1992, she began her career as a trader and then as a portfolio manager at Pier Funds before launching Minerva Capital Management Ltd in 1994, a hedge fund trading in global equities, convertibles and high yield. In 2004, she joined her father’s firm, Wyser-Pratte Management Co. Inc., to launch and market the Wyser-Pratte Euro Value Fund, a European Activist Fund focused on undervalued European equities. After having raised and closed the first round of capital, she left to co-found OCP Capital LLC to help other select alternative managers grow their businesses and investor bases. Prior to the securities business, she began her career in journalism with International Media Partners and NBC Television in Florida. She graduated from Tufts University, and holds Series 7 and 63 registrations with FINRA.
George Rudman
Mr. Rudman brings over 23 years of asset management experience on the buy and sell sides to OCP where he runs all aspects of the business. He assists the team in securing well-positioned investment funds and direct investments and generates professional investor interest in these investments.
Since 2016 Mr. Rudman has been an independent oil and gas investment consultant for large oil and gas asset purchases in the US and he worked at an aerospace company to commercialize its products. From 2006 to 2016 Mr. Rudman was a Managing Director at SGS Asset Management, a $1 billion hedge fund, where he worked on business development and helped manage its lending and direct investments.
From 2001 to 2006 Mr. Rudman was a senior member of a team that managed over $3 billion in hedge fund investments at UBS Financial Services. Mr. Rudman helped manage over 60 hedge fund investments totaling $3 billion for a European-based family at Kemnway Advisory Services from 2000 to 2001. From 1999 to 2000 Mr. Rudman assisted David McCarthy, the Portfolio Manager at Global Asset Management, in managing $1.5 billion in non-equity funds of funds and maintaining relationships with over 30 hedge fund managers. Mr. Rudman’s career in hedge fund investments started at Renaissance Technologies Corp. from 1997 to 1999 where he assisted Nat Simons, the Portfolio Manager, in identifying opportunities across a broad range of strategies for approval by an investment management committee, chaired by Jim Simons, with the goal of creating a $1.5 billion beta-neutral fund of funds.
Mr. Rudman received an M.A. in International Economics in 1997 from The Johns Hopkins University – School of Advanced International Studies. From 1991 to 1995 Mr. Rudman guided Western journalists and politicians to the "battle-front" for first-hand accounts of the wars in ex-Yugoslavia and he was also a translator at Bosnian peace talks. Mr. Rudman received an A.B. in Political Science from the University of Chicago in 1990.
George maintains professional licenses in Series 28, 24, 7 and 63 with FINRA.
Stuart Howard-Smith
Stuart graduated UC Berkeley with a BA in Economics and entered the commercial banking training program at Crocker National Bank in San Francisco. He was selected to be a Crocker head office lender at One Montgomery Street. He was eventually recruited to Paine Webber for their retail broker program and later Kidder Peabody where he sat at the New York desk on the municipal bond trading floor. At Kidder he along with his several NY desk coworkers provided bonds to the 140 retail brokers in the New York region.
Stuart started Essex Capital Management his own small firm after a contraction in the municipal bond market suggested it was time for the move to Florida. At Essex Stuart found his calling as an equities trader under contract to several midsized QIB private family funds. Utilizing a prime broker account and institutional brokers here and offshore he traded both domestic and foreign equities. When he was able, he invested capital he had accumulated at Essex and opened his own prime brokerage relationship with Spear Leeds & Kellogg.
Now after years away from the markets Stuart is delighted to be back and working for OCP Capital. Stuart resides in West Palm Beach, Florida, and spends his time between there and his family farm in the Thousand Islands. Along the way, Stuart obtained his Florida real estate broker license and recently passed his SIE, Series 82, and Series 63.
Andrew Hughes
Andrew Hughes has over 20 Plus years of Institutional sales experience, coupled with an Insurance Risk Management, Account Management, and a Client Relations background. With over 10 Years of experience in Investor/Consultant Relations and Capital Fund Raising, Andrew focuses on Alternative Asset Management with exposure to Traditional Assets, Securities Lending and Transition Management. Mr. Hughes has obtained a number of licenses including a Series 7, Series 63, as well as a property and casualty insurance brokerage license.
Sam Kaufman
Sam has been with OCP Capital since 2012. The Manager clients that he has represented are geographically diverse and have invested across the full spectrum of alternative assets via private equity fund structures and direct investment, hedge funds, and real estate. Sam’s investor-base spans the institutional hierarchy from Single Family Office through Sovereign Wealth Fund, and includes all echelons in between. Private equity fund Manager clients and businesses seeking growth capital have invested in all major industries including: healthcare, real estate, energy, TMT, Food & Beverage, and recycling & materials. Respective hedge fund Manager clients have employed the full range of portfolio strategies, some as generalists others sector-focused, in both equities and credit, including: systematic, traditionally managed L/S equity, activism, and distressed/esoteric credit. Sam received his MBA from the Columbia University Graduate School of Business and his BA from the University of California at Berkeley.
Advisory Board
Larry Siegel
Laurence B. Siegel is the Gary P. Brinson Director of Research at the CFA Institute Research Foundation and an independent consultant. Before his time on the Advisory Board at OCP he was Director of Research in the investment division of the Ford Foundation. Prior to that, he was one of the founding employees of Ibbotson Associates (now part of Morningstar). Mr. Siegel is the author of more than 200 articles on investing and related topics, and is writing a book entitled Fewer, Richer, Greener. He has won many writing awards including the Graham and Dodd Award and the Bernstein Fabozzi/Jacobs Levy Award. Larry is also an Editorial Advisory board member of the Journal of Portfolio Management and the Journal of Investing, and a Board Member and Program Committee Member of the Q Group (Institute for Quantitative Research in Investing). He received his BA in Urban Studies (1975) from the University of Chicago and his MBA in Finance (1977) from the same university’s Booth School of Business. Larry has been on the OCP Advisory Board since 2009.
Robert Kiernan III
Before founding Advanced Portfolio Management (APM), Mr. Kiernan spent nearly two decades in capital markets with Salomon Brothers and Lehman Brothers. Prior to joining Salomon Brothers in the 1980s, he held several foreign policy positions in the first Reagan Administration including appointments at USIA, the National Security Council, and the Department of State. During this time he was also a member of the US Delegation to the UN Human Rights Commission. Currently, in addition to being a 15 year veteran CEO at APM, Mr. Kiernan serves in a number of board positions including Co-Chairman of the Board of Directors of Educate Girls Globally, member of the Advisory Board of the Center on Capitalism and Society at Columbia University, and member of the Research Review Board of the CFA Institute Research Foundation. Mr. Kiernan received an AB manga cum laude and an AM with distinction from the four-year AB/AM program at Boston College and an MBA from the University of Chicago where he was a First National Bank Scholar. He also has studied as a graduate student at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and the University of Cambridge. In addition, Mr. Kiernan is a Senior Fellow at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University where he led a seminar and research project on socially responsible investing.
GHPartners
GH Partners provides broad range of strategic, financial and transaction advisory services to domestic and international clients including public and private companies, financial sponsors and institutional investors. GH Partners is a branch office of OCP Capital.
Noel Rimalovski
Noel Rimalovski brings a deep background in M&A and corporate finance to GH. In Mr. Rimalovski’s 20-year career, he has provided advisory services to clients including, sales and acquisitions of companies, restructurings, capital raisings, valuations and fairness opinions to domestic and international clients in the Telecommunications, Media, Technology, Industrial and Consumer sectors. Prior to joining GH Partners, Mr. Rimalovski was Senior Vice President at Macquarie Capital (USA), 2007-08, in the Telecommunications, Media, Entertainment and Technology Group. While at Macquarie, he completed $1.8bn of investments in the telecommunications sector. Prior to Macquarie, he was Director in the Mergers & Acquisition Group of Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, and its predecessor Wasserstein Perella, where he completed over $20 billion in transactions in the Industrial, Consumer, Technology, Telecommunications and Media sectors. Prior to WP, he gained experience as a banker on structured financings, securitizations and proprietary investments at Millennium Capital Markets and Lazard Frères. Mr. Rimalovski earned his MBA in Finance from Columbia Business School, where he made the Beta Gamma Sigma Honor Society and received the Wall Street Journal Achievement Award for Finance. He holds a BA, Quantitative Economics, from Tufts University.
Michael Zaino
Michael Zaino serves as a Managing Director bringing extensive private equity investment and management experience to GH Partners. At GH Partners, Mr. Zaino is responsible for strategic advisory and deal execution for clients in various industries, including telecommunications and media, aerospace and defense, IT services and transportation. Mr. Zaino‘s experience includes significant cross-border transactions. Prior to joining GH Partners, Mr. Zaino was a Vice President in the Principal Transactions Group of Macquarie Capital Advisors where his focus was on originating, executing and managing the firm’s principal investments. In this capacity, Mr. Zaino was responsible for executing several transactions and the day-to-day management of the group’s three aerospace investments, as well as advising on numerous transactions in various industries. Prior to his work at Macquarie Capital Advisors, Mr. Zaino practiced law in the Private Equity Group of Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP, where he was one of the original members of the group. During his time with Weil, Gotshal & Manges, Mr. Zaino advised many leading private equity investors on a range of investments, including leveraged buyouts, growth capital investments, senior and mezzanine debt financings, venture capital investments and joint ventures.
Mr. Zaino holds a JD from Duke University and a BA in Economics from Yale University
Said Armutcuoglu
Over 29 years’ experience in investment banking and principal investments at Lazard and Loeb Partners/Loeb Spencer House. Past clients in the communications industry include Adelphia (restructuring and various assets sales) Rural Cellular, TeliaSonera/MCT Comm., 360 Networks, Primus, SunCom, Bell South, Bell Canada/Teleglobe, TimeWarner Cable. Mr. Armutcuoglu has earned a BA in Economics from University of Chicago
Richard Miller
Over 20 years’ experience in investment banking and alternative principal investments at Lazard, Evercore, Highbridge Capital Management and Aristeia Capital. Mr. Miller’s recent SPAC advisory assignments include Whole Earth Brands acquisition by Act 2, Desktop Metals acquisition by Trine, sponsor advisory and capital raises for Stable Road, Trine II and DHC Acquisition corporations. Mr. Miller holds a BA in Economics from Emory University
James J. Williams
Over ten years’ experience in investment banking and principal investments at Lazard, Credit Suisse, DLJ and other firms. Past clients include the Export-Import Bank of the United States, Kleos Space, Atlas Air, Anaconda Nickel and Raytheon. Mr. Williams holds an MBA, a BS and a BA, each from Columbia University
Dr. James Beitchman
40 years in the technical, operational and management aspects of the aerospace and telecom industries. Former Director of Engineering, SKY Perfect JSAT Corporation. Executive service in international ventures Asia and Europe, including. Consultant to industry and the investment banking sector since 2001