Daniel J. Arbess (born 1961) is an American lawyer, investor and policy analyst.[1] He founded investment firms Xerion Capital Partners and Xerion Investments and co-founded Stratton Investments, Taiga Capital Partners and Triton Partners.[1]

Daniel J. Arbess
Born (1961-01-23) January 23, 1961 (age 63)
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
NationalityAmerican
Alma materOsgoode Hall Law School
Harvard Law School
TitleFounder, CEO, Xerion Investments

Early life

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Arbess was born on January 23, 1961, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and is a United States citizen.[citation needed] He received a JD from Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto, and an LLM from the Harvard Law School.[2] He was an affiliate at the John F. Kennedy School of Government and a fellow at the New York-based World Policy Institute.[3][1]

Career

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Arbess joined the international law firm White & Case in 1987, after having been in the Kremlin as a foreign observer when Mikhail Gorbachev unveiled the policies of Glasnost and Perestroika. He was the first American lawyer to re-locate to Eastern Europe, moving to Prague in early 1990.[4][5] He advised the Czechoslovak (later Czech) government on its economic transition, principally involving privatization policy and transactions.[6] In 1992, at 31, he became the youngest partner in the history of White & Case and Head of its Global Privatization Group.[7] Arbess advised the Czechoslovak government on the restructuring of its auto industry, including the 1991 sale of Skoda Auto to Volkswagen AG for $6.4 billion (at the time, among the largest cross-border M & A transactions in European history), and the restructuring and sale of its downstream petrochemicals industry to a consortium of international oil majors.[8][9] Arbess' privatization advisory work extended to Russia, Vietnam, Israel and other countries.

Arbess has been a principal investor since 1995, first pursuing restructuring-oriented private transactions in Europe.[10] He is a co-founder of investment firms Taiga Capital, Stratton Investments and Triton Partners and founder, CEO and CIO of Xerion Investments.,[1] having launched Xerion Investments and Xerion Capital Partners in 2003 with the backing of S. Donald Sussman and his Paloma Partners. Arbess sold Xerion Capital Partners to Perella Weinberg Partners and became a partner of that firm in 2007.[11] He was CIO of the $3.25 Billion Xerion Hedge Funds from 2003 to 2014. Xerion's noted investments captured the devolution of Communism and phases of China's economic reforms;[12] the U.S. housing and financial crisis;[13] monetary policy reflation of financial markets after the 2008 crisis;[14] and the restructuring of the U.S. airline and auto industries.[15][16] He returned investor capital in late 2014 to pursue private interests and purposeful investment opportunities through Xerion Investments and its affiliates.[17]

Boards

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Arbess is a member of the Board of Directors of the Global Virus Network, the Corporate Advisory Board of Cancer Expert Now and the Finance Working Group of the Healthy Brains Global Initiative. He is a lifetime member of the Council on Foreign Relations, is a member of the Atlantic Council and advises the Vaclav Havel Library Foundation. He was a co-founder of No Labels, a U.S. political organization promoting collaboration across the political spectrum.[18]

Published works

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Bibliography

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References

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  1. ^ a b c d "Daniel J. Arbess". Bloomberg L.P. August 5, 2017.
  2. ^ "Daniel Arbess". Milken Institute. May 1, 2013.
  3. ^ "White & Case's Man in Prague". The American Lawyer. March 1991.
  4. ^ Karen Dillon (June 1992). "Infiltrating the East" (PDF). The American Lawyer.
  5. ^ Michael Weinstein (November 13, 1991). "Editorial Notebook: Not a Yawn, Real Help". The New York Times.
  6. ^ William Echikson & Ricardo Sookdeo (October 17, 1994). "Young Americans Go Abroad to Strike it Rich: From Budapest to Beijing, record numbers of ambitious entrepreneurs and pioneering professionals are staking claims--and finding rich rewards". Fortune.
  7. ^ Nick Paumgarten (March 5, 2012). "Magic Mountain". The New Yorker.
  8. ^ Irwin Speizer (August 25, 2009). "Dan Arbess: to Chrysler from Skoda". Institutional Investor.
  9. ^ "Daniel Arbess". The Vaclav Havel Library Foundation. Retrieved August 2, 2017.
  10. ^ Michael M. Weinstein (January 11, 1998). "The Capitalist; Giving Russia The Business". The New York Times.
  11. ^ Michael J. de la Merced (October 2, 2007). "Perella Weinberg acquires Xerion Capital amid credit market turmoil". The New York Times.
  12. ^ "China: Bubble or Bonanza". Market Folly. September 14, 2011.
  13. ^ "Wall Street's Bad Dream". The Economist. September 18, 2008.
  14. ^ "Dan Arbess Ira Sohn Presentation: Investing as the Foundation Shifts". Market Folly. June 24, 2010.
  15. ^ Zachary Kouwe (May 30, 2009). "The Lenders Obama Decided to Blame for Chrysler's Fall". The New York Times.
  16. ^ Eric Uhlfelder (October 23, 2010). "From East to West". Barron's.
  17. ^ "MOVES-Hedge fund manager Arbess leaves Perella Weinberg". Reuters. July 22, 2015.
  18. ^ "Jihad & a Geopolitical G-X: Winning the War and Building the Peace". Center for Strategic and International Studies. February 12, 2016.
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