Opus Connect San Francisco Chapter 

February Event: 

Cash Flow Based Financing for the Middle Market – from Senior to Mezzanine Debt

Looking forward to seeing you there!

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 This event is hosted and sponsored by Cooley LLP, and co-sponsored by Wells Fargo Capital Finance, Burr Pilger Mayer, and Sapient Investigations.

www.cooley.com

www.wellsfargocapitalfinance.com

www.bpmcpa.com

www.sapientpi.com

Jeri Harman (Moderator)

Ms. Harman is a Founder and Partner of Avante Mezzanine Partners, a lower middle market focused mezzanine fund. Avante makes debt and minority equity investments to finance buyouts, minority recaps, acquisitions and growth. Avante invests $5 – 20 million in established high quality companies generating at least $3 million EBITDA. Ms. Harman has 30 years of financing experience, involving well over $1 billion in aggregate transactions. Prior to founding Avante, Ms. Harman started-up and led Los Angeles offices for American Capital, and more recently Allied Capital, where she was also a member of Allied’s Investment Committee. During that time, Ms. Harman invested over $650 million in 23 transactions. Earlier career highlights include various senior level positions at Prudential Capital. Ms. Harman is Co-Chair of The Association for Corporate Growth (ACG)-Los Angeles Business Conference, on the Board of Small Business Investor Alliance (SBIA), Ernst &Young Greater Los Angeles Entrepreneur of the Year Judge, and a Director of the Women’s Leadership Council. Ms. Harman has been a speaker at numerous conferences and symposiums throughout the U. S. on topics related to mergers and acquisitions, buyouts, and finance.

Matthew Brown

Mr. Brown joined UnionBanCal Equities, Inc., the merchant banking affiliate of Union Bank N.A., in April 2011 and spearheads the middle market mezzanine debt and non-control equity investing efforts of the group.  Prior to joining UBE, Mr. Brown worked in the Technology Finance group at Wells Fargo Capital Finance, where he focused on executing leveraged loan financings for financial sponsors and software companies with strong recurring revenue models.  Previously, Mr. Brown worked in the Leveraged Finance / Debt Capital Markets groups at Jefferies & Company, Inc., where he executed complex high yield bond and leveraged loan financings across a wide variety of industry sectors in the middle market.  Mr. Brown also worked at Imperial Capital, LLC and other boutique advisory firms earlier in his career, where he focused on executing middle market M&A and growth financing transactions.   Mr. Brown holds a B.A. in Economics and Political Science from the University of California, Los Angeles, and an MBA in Finance & Entrepreneurship from the UCLA Anderson School of Management.

Tim Bubnak

Mr. Bubnack joined Huntington Capital in June 2007 and has more than 17 years of lending, technology investment and financial experience. Prior to joining Huntington, Mr. Bubnak spent five years with Silicon Valley Bank as Managing Director of commercial banking activities in the San Diego region where he managed early stage and middle market banking relationships in the technology, communications and biomedical industries. Prior to joining Silicon Valley Bank in 2002, he served in senior executive positions at Comerica Ventures, Inc. and Comerica Capital Advisors where he was responsible for identifying and assessing direct equity investments and investments in venture funds. Mr. Bubnak also made loans in partnership with the Technology and Life Science Division of Comerica Bank. At Comerica Bank he was part of the founding team of the company's Southern California Emerging Growth Division. Mr. Bubnak is currently representing Huntington Capital as a Board Director for Advances Structural Alloys, Diamond Contract Services, Eaton Pharmaceuticals, Environment Furniture, On Campus Media, and Vertical Management Systems.

Mr. Fung is Managing Director and Head of Sponsor Finance at East West Bank. Mr. Fung started East West Bank’s Sponsor Finance Group in 2011 to focus on financing cash-flow based leveraged buyout transactions in the lower middle market (companies with EBITDA between $5 million and $15 million.) In 2012, the Group closed 5 transactions providing senior debt totaling approximately $100MM. Mr. Fung joined the former United Commercial Bank in 2006 to start the Bank’s commercial banking operation in New York. He relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area in 2009 to becomethe head of Commercial & Industrial Banking for the U.S. After East West Bank acquired the operations of United Commercial Bank, he continued to manage several lending groups in Northern California and New York. Mr. Fung has had more than twenty years’ experience financing leveraged buyouts. He wasa founder of the Acquisition Finance Department at the former Irving Trust Company (now part of The Bank of New York) and later, joined the Leveraged Capital Group at Citicorp. Mr. Fung has an AB in Economics from Hamilton College, an MS in Mathematicsfrom Northwestern University, and an MBA from the Stern School of Business at New York University.

Mr. Nordan is a Managing Director and Investment Committee member at Triangle Capital which is a  $900MM BDC based in Raleigh, North Carolina. Triangle is focused on unitranche, mezzanine and junior debt and equity capital investments for buyouts, growth capital investments and debt and shareholder recapitalizations.  Mr. Nordan joined Triangle in 2004 and is responsible for all aspects of transaction sourcing, structuring, underwriting and deal execution. In addition, Mr. Nordan is responsible for various aspects of valuation and portfolio management. Prior to joining Triangle, he served as Vice President with BB&T Asset Management (BB&T Funds), a $14 billion mutual fund company. He was responsible for research, valuation and portfolio management with a specific focus on small-cap equities. Mr. Nordan spent 5 years in investment banking and consulting prior to BB&T Asset Management. Mr. Nordan has over 10 years of experience investing in private equity transactions and public equity securities as well as corporate finance transactions including IPOs, M&As, senior and subordinated debt placements, recapitalizations, and restructurings. He holds a BSBA with honors from Appalachian State University and an MBA with honors from Duke University. Mr. Nordan is a CFA charterholder and former member of the Board of Directors for the CFA North Carolina Society and current member of ACG Raleigh-Durham chapter.

Joseph Scherer

Mr.Scherer is a partner in the Cooley Business department and heads the Firm's Credit Finance practice group and the Firm's Debt Securities practice group. Mr. Scherer's practice emphasizes the debt financing of businesses in a variety of contexts, including leveraged buyouts, mergers and acquisitions, venture debt financings, asset-based financings, real estate and personal property secured financings, "high yield" financings, subordinated debt financings, public and private convertible debt financings, vendor financings, real estate and financial asset portfolio financings, royalty stream monetizations and project financings. Mr. Scherer was named in San Francisco magazine as a Northern California Super Lawyer and has been included in the 2007-12 editions of The Best Lawyers in America (specialty of Structured Finance Law). Mr. Scherer received a JD in 1982 from the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Law; Mr. Scherer concurrently earned an MBA from UCLA's Anderson Graduate School of Management; he earned his undergraduate degree in Economics from the University of California, Davis.

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By Invitation Only 

Opus Connect is a membership - based organization.

Opus Connect welcomes qualified individuals for membership and event attendance. If you would like to refer a potential member or have any queries, please contact Shiri Leitner at Shiri@opusconnect.com