Independent Sponsors & Capital Providers Dealmakers Meeting

Deepak joined Chartwell in 2015, and has 15 years of investment experience. He is responsible for evaluating, structuring, and executing potential new platform and add-on acquisitions, as well as general portfolio company oversight. 

Previously, Deepak was an Associate at Hyde Park Holdings (HPH), a middle market buyout firm, where he was responsible for new investment analysis, equity and debt financings, and strategic initiatives. Prior to HPH, he was an Associate at Velocity Capital Advisors (VCA), the external investment advisor to a former publicly traded business development company. At VCA, he helped to grow the portfolio by analyzing and executing unitranche, 1st lien, 2nd lien, and mezzanine investments as part of a general credit strategy. Prior to VCA, he held various roles within the finance division at Morgan Stanley.  He started his career as an Analyst with GE Capital.

Deepak currently serves on the Board of Directors of Guardian Fleet Services, Blue Ocean Aesthetic Holdings,  Rohrer Aesthetics,  Contract Datascan Holdings, EFM Equipment Company, and General Rubber Corporation and has previously served as a Director of TTG Imaging Solutions.  Deepak has an MBA from the New York University Stern School of Business, a B.S. from the Fairfield University Dolan School of Business as a dual major in Finance and Marketing.

Dan joined Comvest Partners in 2011. He is a Partner of the Firm and Co-Head of Consumer & Retail for Comvest’s direct lending strategy. He serves as a member of Comvest’s Executive Committee and the Investment Committee for Comvest’s direct lending strategy. In addition, Dan is responsible for originating, structuring and managing investments primarily in the consumer and retail industries.

Prior to joining Comvest, Dan was a Senior Director of Dymas Capital Management (an affiliate of Cerberus Capital Management), where he served on the Investment Committee and was instrumental in the formation and growth of the firm from a start-up to an established middle-market finance company. Dan began his career with Arthur Andersen and Heller Financial.

Dan received an M.B.A. from the University of Michigan Stephen M. Ross School of Business and a B.A. in Accounting from the University of Notre Dame.

Bruce Eatroff has over thirty years of private equity, private credit, fund investing, investment banking and operational experience through various senior roles including at Goldman Sachs, UBS, CIBC and BMO Capital Markets.

In 2000, Mr. Eatroff founded Halyard Capital, raising over $600 million, a U.S. lower middle-market private equity fund manager with sophisticated institutional investors including Goldman Sachs, Abbott Capital and Bank of Montreal.

Mr. Eatroff has a broad spectrum of private equity investing experience across technology enabled services industries including Human Capital Management, Digital and Direct Marketing and IT/Cybersecurity Services. He has in the past represented and currently represents Halyard on the board of directors of over a dozen portfolio companies. Mr. Eatroff has also overseen and helped integrate more than 40 add-on acquisitions for portfolio companies.

Mr. Eatroff started his career as an investment banker at Lehman Brothers in 1985. After business school, he then spent six years ending as a Vice President in investment banking and principal investing at Goldman Sachs. Mr. Eatroff then became a Managing Director at UBS, CIBC and later BMO Capital Markets where he was also US Head of Media & Communications Investment & Corporate Banking overseeing investment, corporate and merchant banking groups including oversight for a $3 billion loan portfolio. At Goldman Sachs, UBS, CIBC and BMO, Mr. Eatroff was on the principal / merchant banking investment teams making private equity investments, private credit investments and fund investments, in addition to investment banking activities.

Mr. Eatroff is a recognized thought leader in the alternative asset management industry having spoken at over 100 industry conferences. He is the Co-President of the Wharton Private Equity & Venture Capital Association and the former Chairman of the Lafayette College Leadership Council (2011 – 2015).

Mr. Eatroff received an MBA from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and a BA with honors from Lafayette College.

Mr. Eatroff started as a personal investor and Senior Advisor prior to becoming a Managing Director and Investment Committee Member.

Doug Lancey is a Director at Tamarix Capital Partners. Doug has over 15 years of experience in commercial and investment banking, and private credit.

Doug most recently served as a Vice President in TD Bank’s middle market group focused on sponsor and direct lending. Prior to that he worked at Harvest Capital Credit, a lower middle market-focused Business Development Company (BDC) providing cash flow loans and minority equity investments to companies nationwide. Doug previously spent time working at Evolution Media Capital, an investment banking firm providing M&A advisory services to the professional sports, media, and entertainment industries. Earlier in his career he worked at lower middle market-focused credit funds HighPoint Capital (d/b/a Crescent Direct Lending) and NewStar Financial.

Doug is a CFA Charterholder. In addition, he holds an MBA from the Fordham University Graduate School of Business. During his tenure at Fordham, he studied at China’s Peking University as part of the Beijing International MBA program. He holds a BA from the University of Massachusetts.

As Principal with Valesco, Patrick Floeck’s primary responsibilities include business development strategy and investment origination. He also plays a meaningful role in other functional areas including due diligence, transaction structure, and portfolio company management through active Board positions. His athletic background and drive for success helps promote Valesco’s brand and mission of Commitment Beyond Capital. 

Prior to Valesco, Patrick spent more than five years with Amegy Bank N.A. focusing on private equity sponsored transactions and middle market companies across multiple industries. His business development, financial analysis, and credit management background working with privately held businesses from the commercial banking and leveraged finance perspective brings a valuable dimension to Valesco’s team.

Patrick received his Master of Business Administration from the Southern Methodist University Cox School of Business, with a concentration in Finance. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas and was a member of the Trinity University Men’s Soccer Team, earning All-America honors. Patrick currently serves on the Executive Board for The Birthday Party Project, a non-profit organization that hosts birthday parties to bring joy to children living in homeless and transitional living facilities. He also enjoys anything athletic including running, cycling and golf, but spends most of his time with his wife and two daughters.

Ben Schneider brings a mix of operating experience at the executive level as well as investing experience to BASE.

Prior to founding BASE, Schneider was a member of the Senior Executive Team at IMAX Corporation (NYSE: IMAX).  As Chief of Staff, reporting directly to the CEO, Schneider focused on areas of Strategy, Corporate Development / M&A, Marketing & Communications, Budgeting, Operating Plans, and operations in China. During this period, the company achieved several significant milestones, including doubling its revenues, increasing EBITDA margins by 15%, and more than doubling its market capitalization from $800 million to over $1.7 billion.

Prior to IMAX, Schneider worked for Susquehanna International Group, a multi-billion dollar investment firm.  He began his career as an Analyst at The Walnut Group, a private equity firm with investments in the retail, consumer, media and entertainment sectors. 

Originally from Cincinnati, Schneider holds a BA from the University of Michigan and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Mr. Deery is a senior investment professional with approximately 25 years of experience investing senior debt, junior debt and private equity as well as in financial analysis / accounting due diligence.  He has successfully completed over 50 transactions representing over $6 billion of invested capital and sat on the investment committees of multiple investment funds.

Mr. Deery has a broad range of investment experience having trained at and worked with some of the leading global private credit investment firms. Most recently he was approved and licensed by the U.S. Government Small Business Administration (SBA) managed Small Business Investment Company (SBIC) program where he was a Partner and Investment Committee member of an SBIC fund focused on providing strategic debt and equity capital to growing U.S.-based private businesses. Prior to that he was an Investment Committee Member for a Business Development Company (BDC) whose leadership included a former Partner & Chief Investment Officer of Credit Alternatives and former Head of Global Credit at Goldman Sachs Asset Management (GSAM).

Mr. Deery began his private credit investing career at GE Antares Capital (today a $50+ billion private credit manager owned by Canada’s largest pension plan, CPPIB with ~$500 billion of assets).  Mr. Deery left with some colleagues from GE to develop a private lending business at Jeffries in partnership with MassMutual Insurance Company.

Mr. Deery’s broad context of macro and micro experience includes equity research at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., an investment research and institutional asset management company now part of the ~$700 billion AUM global asset management firm AllianceBernstein. He started his career in financial/accounting due diligence at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) in the 1990s where he was promoted to a team lead.

Mr. Deery is a graduate of Vanderbilt University with a major in Economics and minor in Business Administration. He received an MBA from NYU’s Stern School of Business with concentrations in Finance and Busines

Claudine oversees an integrated team of transaction, valuation, restructuring, project finance, and dispute resolution professionals serving clients throughout the lifecycles of their businesses. With specific expertise in managing opportunities and roadblocks that can impact a business moving forward, Claudine and her team help clients achieve optimal outcomes in protecting and growing stakeholder value.

Claudine serves as an adviser to public and private companies, both domestically and internationally. Her clients comprise the full gamut of financial sponsors including private equity investors, independent sponsors, family offices, alternative investment funds, lenders, and strategic investors. Her areas of knowledge include strategic advisory, quality of earnings analyses, identifying revenue sources and profitability drivers, examining operating cost structure and sustainability factors, investigating business models including cash flow and financial projections, reviewing quality and realization of assets and liabilities, identifying working capital requirements and negotiating positions, post-close working capital verification, and adjustment mechanisms.  

Claudine was named to Mergers and Acquisitions 2019 list of the most influential women in mid-market M&A, and Crain’s NY 2018 most notable women in consulting.

Neel is an experienced investor, operator, and advisor. Prior to NB Group, he was a member of the investment team at Berkshire Partners, a corporate development manager at The New York Times, a co-founder of Foodpanda India, and a management consultant at Bain & Company. He is also the founder of NB Advisory, an advisory and consulting firm working with growth stage technology businesses on corporate development, strategy, and finance.

At Berkshire Partners, a leading growth-oriented private equity fund, Neel evaluated new investments in the tech/telecom and consumer/retail industries. He also worked closely with the executive teams of several portfolio companies including retailers Aritzia and Party City, where he was a Board Observer. At the New York Times, Neel evaluated investments in ad tech, business intelligence, and mobile. At Bain, Neel advised clients across industries and worked with several large private equity funds on strategic diligence.

Neel is a graduate of the University of Michigan and Harvard Business School.

Patrick J. Machir leads the firm’s direct investment advisory and private placements practice, leveraging his extensive experience as both a principal investor and deal advisor. 

Prior to joining Atlantic-Pacific, Patrick served as an Advisor at Roundtable Investment Partners, a family office based in New York, evaluating and structuring investments across the alternatives landscape.  Previously, Patrick served as a senior member of the investment team at WL Ross & Co., an investment firm based in New York, and at Bear Stearns as a member of the Leveraged Finance Group and in the High Yield Research department.   

Patrick earned an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a B.S. in Finance and Accounting from Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business. 

Steven Marcus is the founder and Managing Member of Rainbow Capital, LLC. Prior to his private equity endeavors Mr. Marcus worked in leveraged finance with major investment banks including Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, Smith Barney, Inc. and L.F. Rothschild, Unterberg and Towbin. He has been involved in numerous High Yield bond financings as well as many privately negotiated transactions of debt with equity securities. Mr. Marcus holds an M.B.A. from the Fuqua School of Business, Duke University and a B.S. in Accounting from the Whitman School of Management, Syracuse University.