Mergermarket M&A Forum Chicago 2023
The must-attend event for US dealmakers returns!
The Ritz-Carlton, Chicago
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Marc Cooper is CEO of Solomon Partners, a position he has held since 2016. He was previously Vice Chairman from 2013 to 2016 and joined the firm in 1999 as a Partner and Managing Director.
In 2016, Marc led the transaction in which Natixis, the international corporate and investment banking, asset management, insurance and financial services arm of Groupe BPCE, made a strategic investment in Solomon Partners.
As the former head of Solomon’s Consumer Retail Group, Marc has advised a long roster of high-profile retailers and brands. Over the past three decades, Marc has advised on hundreds of transactions globally, including mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, recapitalizations and restructurings, financings and shareholder activism.
Prior to joining Solomon Partners, Marc co-founded and served as Vice Chairman of Barington Capital Group where he oversaw its investment banking operations. He began his career in investment banking at Kidder Peabody.
Marc holds an MBA, magna cum laude, and a BS from New York University.
Alex joined Periscope in 2018 and is a Principal. He leads business development and is responsible for the firm’s deal sourcing effort across business owners, executives and deal intermediaries as well as other relationships tied to Periscope’s origination strategy.
Prior to joining Periscope Equity, Alex was a Vice President of business development at a lower middle market private investment firm. Previously, Alex was a Vice President at Gibraltar Business Capital, where he focused on sponsor-backed, private credit origination. Earlier in his career, Alex was an Assistant Vice President at PNC Capital Markets in its financial services, advisory and banking practice, where he covered insurance companies.
Alex received a BBA in finance, investment and banking from the University of Wisconsin – Madison.
After eight years collaborating for Mergermarket from Latin America, Carlos is joining our staff as the new Canada Editor, where he will boost coverage and build up a strong source network, as well as spearhead Mergermarket’s energy and mining reporting.
Carlos started out as a Colombia correspondent in late 2014 and quickly became a crucial member of the Latin America team, helping with edits, sharing leads on Teams, and closely collaborating with Debtwire and Infralogic’s regional teams. He was named Deputy Latin America Editor in 2021.
Prior to joining Mergermarket, Carlos was senior features editor at Mexico’s leading business magazine and held similar roles at various other media outlets in Canada and the UK. He started his journalism career as a researcher/reporter at the Los Angeles Times’ foreign bureau in Mexico City back in 2005.
Carlos holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Thompson Rivers University in Canada and a master’s degree in international development from the University of Manchester in the UK. He is fluent in English and Spanish and is refreshing his high school French language skills. Outside of work he spends most of his time playing with his six-year-old daughter Sienna and walking his mixed-breed schnauzer Max.
Ms. Browne is co-head of the Elevate strategy as part of the Sponsor Solutions Business. In addition, she works on various strategic investing initiatives across the firm. Prior to joining GCM Grosvenor, Ms. Browne worked at RedBird Capital Partners, where she focused on investing in family and founder-led businesses, including transaction sourcing, company-building, capital raising, and co-investments. Before joining RedBird, she was a senior member of the investment team and head of business development for DNS Capital, a prominent Midwest family office, where she focused on investing in venture and private equity transactions across a range of industries and sectors. Earlier in her career, she held roles at Goldman Sachs, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, and The Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Ms. Browne earned a BA in Sociology with Great Distinction from McGill University and an MBA in Finance and International Business from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. She sits on the Midwest steering committee for the Women's Association of Venture & Equity (WAVE); is a member of the Private Equity Women Investor Network (PEWIN) and The Chicago Network; and founded the Chicago Women: Lift & Lead citywide interview series, in partnership with Chicago Scholars.
Erik Levy is the Group head, Corp Dev and M&A at DMGT plc. Erik is a highly experienced Corporate Development Executive with deep experience building and leading best in class, Fortune 1000 acquisition/investment and portfolio strategy. Erik has completed over 150 acquisitions, minority and venture investments and strategic partnerships.
Philip is chief strategy & marketing officer at Sterling Technology, a premium provider of virtual data room solutions for M&A, capital markets, and real estate. He has more than 30 years' experience working in strategy, M&A, corporate development, and corporate finance leadership roles in management consulting, investment banking, public companies, and private equity backed firms. Philip is a non-executive adviser to startups, investment management and private equity firms. He has served as an honorary visiting fellow in finance, and as a member of the advisory board of the M&A Research Centre, at Cass Business School. He is a co-author of over a dozen published M&A research studies and papers, as well as a co-inventor and patent holder for computerised, networked secure collaboration technology. Philip graduated from the University of London with Masters degrees in computer science and finance.
Rachel currently leads the Immunology Business Development & Acquisitions (BD&A) at AbbVie, from strategy development through deal execution for this core therapeutic area. She also oversees the company’s BD&A in AI/ML-Enabled Drug Discovery and its China Partnering Center of Excellence. Her previous deal experience has included Oncology, Virology, Women's Health and other Specialty disease areas. She has represented AbbVie across a wide spectrum of both inbound and outbound deal structures, including licenses, options, acquisitions/divestitures, research alliances and other collaborations. She has completed deals with public companies, privately held start-ups and academic institutions. In addition to her deal work, Rachel enjoys mentoring and managing junior talent.
Rachel joined Abbott/AbbVie in 2009 as part of the Commercial Management Development Program, holding various roles in Sales and Marketing. After serving as Senior Product Manager, Bardoxolone, Global Marketing, she worked on AbbVie’s separation from Abbott and various post-merger integrations, including that of Pharmacyclics while serving as Director, AbbVie Transition Office. Rachel joined the Business Development & Acquisitions team at the end of 2015. Prior to joining Abbott, she was a strategic management consultant for firms including BCG.
Rachel attended Stanford University, where she earned both an MBA from the Graduate School of Business and an MA from the Center for East Asian Studies. Her undergraduate degree is from Brown University, in Engineering and East Asian Studies.
Ryan covers technology, media and chemicals M&A for Mergermarket and Dealreporter.
Mr. Dresner founded Dresner Partners in 1991 to provide Wall Street investment banking services to middle market businesses. His distinguished corporate finance career spans nearly 30 years, including mergers, acquisitions, debt and equity financing, restructuring and turnarounds, recapitalizations and international transactions. In addition to his transactional experience, Mr. Dresner has led numerous valuation, fairness opinion and strategic financial consulting engagements. He has worked extensively in several industries including healthcare, business services, building products, textiles, industrial manufacturing, retail and media.Prior to founding Dresner Partners, Mr. Dresner held management positions with First Chicago Corporation (JP Morgan Chase), Arthur Andersen (corporate finance and mergers and acquisitions practices), Heller Financial and GE Capital Corporation.
A community leader, Mr. Dresner serves on the Board of Directors of the Chicago Association for Corporate Growth, the Michael Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Chicago, North Shore Congregation Israel, RTC Corporate Board, and The Entrepreneurship Institute. He has also served on the Ravinia annual fund committee and is a member of The Economic Club of Chicago.
Education
M.B.A. Finance, University of Chicago Graduate School of Business
B.S. Economics, with Honors, Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania
Thomas is a Principal at Pritzker Private Capital focused on the firm’s investing activities in the Manufactured Products sector. Prior to joining Pritzker Private Capital, Thomas worked at Madison Dearborn Capital Partners, a multi-billion dollar Chicago-based firm. Prior to joining Madison Dearborn, Thomas was an investment banking analyst at Deutsche Bank in their Financial Sponsors Group.
Thomas received his M.B.A. from Harvard Business School. He received his B.B.A. in Finance from the University of Wisconsin – Madison.
William J. Rowe is a mergers and acquisitions partner in the Chicago office of Baker McKenzie. He assists global clients, many Fortune 100 repeat acquirers, with transformational international mergers and acquisitions. Representative clients include FedEx, McDonald's, Stryker, Daimler, Kao Corporation and Laboratoires Servier as well as companies seeking to be acquired. William has successfully closed over 30 cross border transactions and has spoken at conferences held by or been published by Bloomberg, Practicing Law Institute, the Chicago Bar Association and Deal Lawyers on practical developments for international acquisitions. His practice emphasizes making cross border strategy driven mergers, acquisitions and joint ventures reliable and understandable to strategic companies competing in local M&A processes, through explanation, modification of terms and tools like representation and warranty insurance.