BIOGRAPHIES
Michael Sonenshine, CFA
Managing Principal, Head of Research
Mr. Sonenshine is a founding partner of MT Thaler and is the Investment Principal primarily responsible for managing credit products focusing on the High Yield markets both in Western Europe and Eastern Europe. Before founding MT Thaler Mr. Sonenshine spent four years as a senior analyst covering European High Yield markets. From 2000 to 2002 he was at CSFB. Prior to that he was with ING Barings. He was ranked among the top analysts in Institutional Investor, EuroMoney and Credit Magazine. Prior to his work as a high yield analyst Mr. Sonenshine was General Manager of ING Investment Management, Czech Republic. Under Mr. Sonenshine.s leadership, ING Investment Management managed approximately US$250 mn and launched three Luxembourg domiciled, Czech Koruna denominated investment funds. These funds were the first of their kind in the Czech market and outperformed their benchmarks. Prior to working for ING investment management, Mr. Sonenshine was senior Equity analyst at ING Barings focused on Russia and Central Europe. Sonenshine earned his CFA designation in 1999. He holds an MBA from the William E. Simon School at the University of Rochester, where he specialised in Finance and Public Policy. He also holds a B.A. in History from Tufts University.
John Vax
Managing Principal, Chief Investment Officer
Mr. Vax is a responsible for overall portfolio risk management. He generates investment ideas in distressed securities and is in charge of MT Thaler.s advisory mandates focussing on distressed securities. Prior to founding MT Thaler Mr. Vax was a Managing Director at Commerzbank responsible for Eastern Europe from 1998 to 2003. He ran the bank.s regional fixed income trading desk and treasury operations, including an average US$300 mn of bonds, money market instruments and derivatives. He was directly responsible for managing long and short positions that account for the bank.s interest rate, credit and currency risk for Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia. Under his leadership this operation went from a net loss position in 1997 to being a significant net contributor to the investment banking division.s profit in 2001 and 2002. Mr. Vax also started, built, and managed a capital markets desk in Central Europe for his previous employer, ING Barings. He was responsible for sales, trading, and research for both fixed income and equity. The desk reached a leading position in fixed income and equity markets and as a consequence became large contributor to the bank.s profit in Central Europe. He began his involvement in the Central European capital markets in 1992 at Ceskoslovenska Obchodni Banka (Czechoslovak Trade Bank), where he was an advisor to the Vice Chairman of the bank on the issue of valuing the bank.s non-public equity portfolios (total value US$200 mn). He also advised on establishing systems and procedures for asset selection and valuing fixed income and equity security portfolios. Mr. Vax earned his CFA designation in 2003. He holds an MBA with a specialization in Finance from Loyola University, Chicago, and a BS in Economics from Marquette University, Milwaukee.
Jan Kofol
Managing Director, Restructuring & Loan Workout
Mr. Kofol has more than 30 years of corporate restructuring, workouts, risk management and corporate lending at major consulting firms, and at major investment and commercial banks. Prior to joining MT Thaler Mr. Kofol was Senior Director, at Alvarez& Marshal Central Europe Global, an operational and advisory firm specializing in assisting organizations to solve problems and unlock value for the stake holders. His multinational banking experience includes more than 20 years at Credit Suisse First Boston, where he managed the bank.s global portfolio of problem loans. He also served as Deputy Head of Risk Management North America Credit Suisse, Vice Chairman Credit Committee and Vice Chairman of the Leverage Finance Credit Committee. He began his tenure with CSFB in 1978 as a corporate lending officer. Prior to working at CSFB Mr. Kofol was at Manufacturers Hanover Trust, New York, where he was an international lending officer. Mr. Kofol holds an MBA from New York University and BA from Presbyterian College.
Christian Schiweck, CEFA
Senior Investment Manager
Mr. Schiweck takes primary responsibility for the MT Thaler Short Term Bond Fund. Mr. Schiweck is also responsible for investments in Sovereign Debt Instruments. Prior to working with MT Thaler Mr. Schiweck was a Managing Director at DWS / DB Advisors responsible for Global Emerging Market Debt from 2004 to 2009 . He ran the asset manager.s global Emerging Market business and held the position of a Global Head of Emerging Market debt. Under his leadership this business went from 1.5 billion AUM to over 3 billion AUM. From 1995 to 2004 Mr. Schiweck was a fund manager in Deka Investments in Germany, where he managed sovereign debt funds. He was awarded Fund Manager of the Year for 2002 in Germany. Mr. Schiweck started his career 1994 at SBG / Intrag (UBS). Mr. Schiweck earned his CEFA designation in 1999. He holds a Master of Economics from University of Mainz.
Peter McGregor
Chief Operating Officer
Mr. McGregor oversees all administrative and operational issues for MT Thaler. Prior to joining MT Thaler, Mr. McGregor spent the previous ten years with ING, providing operations and project management to ING installations in Central Europe and Monaco. Among his projects, he set up the bank in Monaco to offer Wealth Management, and managed the project to centralise the Central European wholesale banking operations. Prior to that, he was head of Private Banking for the Geneva branch of ABN AMRO, where he set up systems to improve customer focus and facilitate introduction of new products. Mr. McGregor has twenty years of banking operations experience. He has a BSc in Mathematics from the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, and a PhD in Computer Science from Balliol College, Oxford, England.
Willem Naves
Board Member and Advisor to the Investment Committee
Mr. Naves has been a Director of MT Thaler since it was founded in 2003. He has more than 25 years of experience in investment and corporate banking, global investment management; strategy, trading, marketing and sales, administrative procedures credit and project management. Aside from his responsibilities at MT Thaler he is an independent advisor and consultant to multinational banks such as ING. In this role he has been in charge of two large successful banking privatizations in Serbia and is presently managing a banking IPO project in Tanzania. He also acted as an advisor for risk and capital management, mergers and acquisitions and other financial and capital market products, serving in Macedonia, Poland, El Salvador, Indonesia, the Philippines and Egypt.
From 1983 till the end of 2002 he worked for ING Bank and was a pioneer of the global emerging markets debt trading. He managed ING.s trading operations in Amsterdam and Sao Paulo. From 1988 onwards he was based in the London mainly focused on Central & Eastern Europe. He built a primary and secondary emerging market Eurobond and Equities trading and sales activity, loan syndications, forfeiting, structured finance and initiated trading of derivative instruments. During his London period he was ING.s Global Head of Fixed Income, Head of the Emerging Mediterranean European African Equities product which included all research, sales and trading, member of ING.s regional management team as well as the global and regional credit committee.
Mr. Naves holds a degree in law from the Erasmus University of Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
Charles Klein
Board Member
Mr. Klein joined MT Thaler’s board of directors in 2008. He has more than 20 years of experience in corporate finance and treasury management. He held various management positions at General Motors Europe and subsidiaries thereof. During his tenure at General Motors he managed multi-billion dollar foreign exchange currency portfolios, implemented treasury reporting systems across subsidiaries and was responsible for real estate development, acquisition and disposition. Mr. Klein began his career at AT Kearny Management Consultants in Germany, where he worked on manufacturing projects in the automotive, glass, chemical and logistics sectors. In addition to his native English language he speaks German and Russian. He holds a Masters Degree in Business Administration from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelors Degree in Economics from the University of California at Irvine.
Antoine Rolland
Board Member, MT Thaler Credit Opportunity Fund
Antoine Rolland is CEO of New Alpha Advisers, which completed a Seeding Agreement with the MT Thaler New Europe Fund in 2005. New Alpha Advisors is a subsidiary of leading French asset management company OFI. He started his career in 1993 in New York where he developed financial models for Société Génerale. From 1994 to 1997 he worked as market-maker on fixed income derivatives in Paris and London for Transoptions Finance. He then moved to Aurel to manage the convertible desk. In 1998 he joined ADI and was in charge of managing the convertible arbitrage funds. He was also responsible for the Credit and Volatility Strategies and member of ADI’s investment committee. Antoine Rolland is an engineer and graduated from Ecole Centrale de Lyon.