Jonathan Bowers

CIO

Prior to founding Acer Investment Management, Jonathan Bowers was a founding Partner and Senior Portfolio Manager of CVC Credit Partners, formerly CVC Cordatus from 2006 until 2018. He was Head of European Performing Credit and raised and managed the European Credit Opportunities fund, 10 CLOs, and various managed accounts.

From late 1997 to 2006 he was a senior director in the European Leveraged Finance group at Deutsche Bank (Bankers Trust) where he led the origination and structuring of numerous financings for leveraged buyouts. Prior to this, Jonathan worked in M&A at Charterhouse Bank after completing the Citibank Analyst Programme in London and New York.

MA in French and History from the University of Oxford in 1993

Askin Aziz

Acer Tree Credit Opportunities Fund, Portfolio Manager

Prior to joining Acer Tree Investment Management, Askin was a Portfolio Manager at Arrowgrass Capital where he ran a long short credit book. Previously, Askin was a co founding Partner and Portfolio Manager of Camares Capital, a long short European credit hedge fund where he was responsible for the fundamental investing strategy. Prior to Camares Capital, Askin worked within the Deutsche Bank Proprietary trading group, managing a long short credit book. Askin overlapped with Jonathan Bowers and Sven Olson at Deutsche Bank. Prior to joining Deutsche Bank, Askin qualified as a Chartered Certified Accountant

Askin has a joint 1st class BSc. with Honours in Economics & Accounting from City University, London

Philip Grose

CLO Platform, Portfolio Manager

Prior to founding Acer Investment Management, he was a Senior Analyst and Investment Risk Committee Member at Observatory Capital from 2016 to 2018. Before joining Observatory, he was a founding Partner and investment professional at Castle Hill Asset Management, where he was responsible for European telecommunications, media and technology investments. Prior to joining Castle Hill in January 2010, Philip and his co founders worked at Ignis Investment Management Limited. Prior to joining Ignis, Philip worked at Merrill Lynch as a Senior Director covering the TMT sector. Before joining Merrill Lynch, he spent five years at Deutsche Bank as a research analyst on the high yield trading desk and in their research department.

Bachelor of Arts in Economics and History from the University of Pennsylvania

Sven Olson

Co-Head of Research

Prior to founding Acer Investment Management, Sven worked for Angelo, Gordon where he spent two years as a distressed analyst and his last year assisting in the launch of AG’s first European CLO. Prior to Angelo, Gordon, Sven was a founding Partner at Castle Hill, where he focused on industrials and special situations. Previously, Sven spent three years in proprietary trading at Deutsche Bank focusing on a variety of debt, equity and derivative instruments. Before that, Sven was the Head of European High Yield Research at Deutsche Bank where he received the top ranking from Institutional Investor in the industrial category. Sven began his research career at Bankers Trust in New York in 1998.

Bachelor of Science from SUNY Albany and an MBA from New York University

Sasha Vlahcevic

Co-Head of Research

Prior to founding Acer Investment Management, he most recently worked at Luxor Capital as a Senior Analyst. Prior to working at Luxor, he was a Senior Analyst and founding Partner at Castle Hill, where he focused on energy, paper and packaging, and real estate investments. Castle Hill was spun out of Ignis Investment Management Limited, where Mr. Vlahcevic and his co founders had been hired as an internal asset manager for Pearl (now Phoenix) Life Insurance. Mr. Vlahcevic came to Ignis from ING, where he worked as a distressed analyst on a proprietary trading desk, first in New York and then London. Mr. Vlahcevic started his post MBA career as an investment banker in leveraged finance for Bankers Trust and later in the telecoms team of Bear Stearns

MBA from Columbia University and a Bachelor of Science from the University of Virginia

Andrea Marangoni

Business Development

Prior to Acer Tree, Andrea co founded BirchLane Capital a credit long / short hedge fund.

From 2009 to mid 2016 Andrea was a trader and member of the Investment Committee at Barclays’ EMEA Special Situations and Distressed Division; Head of Credit Sales for Southern Europe, Switzerland and Austria; part of senior management in EMEA Commodities Division. Before that, Andrea was at Goldman Sachs in 2000 09 as part of the Hedge Funds Group and Head of Italian Credit Sales; previously at JP Morgan in 1999 2000; Andrea began his career as a proprietary trader at Deutsche Bank in 1996.

Andrea holds a BBA degree from the European University, Paris, France

Nicolas Bury

Portfolio Manager

Prior to Acer Tree, Nicolas was the Portfolio Manager running BirchLane Capital credit arbitrage books overseeing all structured credit transactions and hedging strategies for the fund

Before BirchLane Capital, Nicolas was a credit derivatives trader at JP Morgan since 2005. In this role, he has been instrumental in the implementation of some of the largest portfolio trades executed at JP Morgan and in the street. Through managing a number of different credit derivatives books, including the bespoke full capital tranche book, Nicolas has built expertise in trade structuring, portfolio construction, risk management, and the optimization of funding and capital constraints

Nicolas graduated from Mines ParisTech with a Master degree in science and executive engineering.

Robert Galione

Chief Operating Officer

Rob is the company’s Chief Operating Officer with 35 years of experience and responsible for all operational functions

Previously Rob was COO of Dirichlet Principal Partners in 2019 and Trium Capital between 2015 and 2018. Prior to Trium he was at ECM Asset Management which he joined in its start up phase in 1999 as Head of Operations and became COO in 2010. Rob started his career at UBS where he spent eleven years in the Debt Division. His main focus was on derivatives, spending the last two years in Singapore as head of the fixed income middle office

Bachelor of Arts in History from the University of London, Royal Holloway College

Julia Agafonova

Head of Operations

Julia is the Acer Tree’s Head of Operations with over 25 years’ experience in management of operations and trade/settlement support of multiple products including CLOs, Fixed Income, Credit Derivatives, Structured Finance, Money Markets and Foreign Exchange instruments for various fund structures and managed accounts

Previously Julia was Head of European Operations and Fund Administration at CVC Credit Partners between 2013 and 2021. Prior to this, Julia was Head of Middle Office and Operations at Aladdin Capital Management and at Fusion Asset Management. Previously she worked at JPMorgan Chase Bank for 7 years in various operational roles

Julia graduated with an MSc in Information Systems and Computer Management Systems from the Economics and Finance Department of the Moscow Aviation Institute with First Class Honours

Dan Grillo

Research Analyst

Dan is a Research Analyst at Acer Tree Investment Management with 2 years of experience in the financial services industry

Prior to joining Acer Tree, Dan worked as a technical support analyst at Citigroup where he was responsible for supporting front office sales/trading functions and client connectivity across several asset classes including Futures, Options and FX desks

Dan graduated in 2020 with a 1st Class MEng Honours degree in Aeronautical Engineering from Imperial College London

Wei Ka Tan

Research Analyst

Wei Ka is a Research Analyst working across credit strategies

Prior to joining Acer Tree, Wei Ka worked for PricewaterhouseCoopers within their Valuations team providing valuations and related services to institutional investors, sovereign wealth funds and corporates within the energy and infrastructure sector. This includes valuations of various fixed income instruments.

Wei Ka is a chartered accountant and graduated from the University of Manchester with first class honours, majoring in Accounting and Finance.