Brian Hellmer
Director of the Hawk Center for Applied Security Analysis at the Wisconsin School of Business
Eric Stubbs
Senior Vice President at RBC Wealth Management
Mr. Stubbs is a Senior Vice President – Financial Consultant at RBC Wealth Management. Eric manages a strategy called “Global Tactical Allocation Strategy” (GTAS). GTAS uses indexes in the form of exchange traded funds (ETFs) to take positions in the global stock market, bonds, gold, and commodities. The strategy is a top-down macro-economic approach to investing, meaning that Eric believes that the primary drivers are macroeconomic and include factors such as energy prices, unemployment, GDP growth, foreign exchange rates, political and economic uncertainty. At times the strategy will take short positions in the market as well. Eric has used this strategy for over five years and brings to it a thorough training in economics and twenty years of money management and client advisory experience.
Prior to joining Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) in 2008, Eric spent more than seven years at Bear Stearns. He began at Bear Stearns as the co-head of Wealth Management, specializing in investment strategy. While there, he headed the design and development of a state-of-the-industry asset allocation and risk analysis system. Which became the anchor for Bear’s allocation work for all of its Private Client Services clients. At the request of the Compliance Department, he also designed the analytical systems used at Bear to assess the risk profiles of their fee-based accounts.
Before Bear Stearns, Eric served as head of Strategic Investment Advisory Group at JP Morgan. In that capacity, he was the senior advisor to JP Morgan’s pension fund and endowment clients for concerns dealing with asset allocation, investment strategy and manager selection. He advised the plans and endowments on how to integrate their cash flow needs with an appropriate and prudent asset allocation, and how to manage the overall risk both on an asset-only basis and taking into account the liabilities side. In addition, he helped to design a market risk measurement and management system for one of the largest institutional investors in Asia. Previously Eric was the market risk monitor for JP Morgan’s proprietary trading and investment businesses including fixed income, mortgages, securities lending, swaps, derivatives and global developed market equities. On a daily basis he generated a risk report outlining all of the market risks associated with JP Morgan’s own capital allocation and communicated that summary to the President and CEO of the bank. Eric was also the chief business-side architect for JP Morgan’s firm-wide third generation market risk management system.
Before coming to Wall Street, Eric was a Manager in Price Waterhouse Office of Government Service in Washington DC where he was the chief econometrician involved in the audits of HUD, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac. He developed and ran the audit models to estimate prepayment and default risk and costs for these organizations.
Larry Halperin
Partner, Chapman and Cutler LLP
Larry Halperin is a partner in the Banking Group and the Litigation, Bankruptcy and Restructuring Group, and Co-Office Leader of the Firm’s New York office. He joined the Firm in 2013.
Larry focuses his practice on financial restructuring of distressed companies, high yield and distressed debt transactions, commercial lending transactions and event-driven mergers and acquisitions. He typically represents agents, private funds, investment banks and financial institutions in connection with their investments in, and financings transactions to, mid-cap companies. Larry has counseled clients who desire to acquire portfolio companies in need of restructuring by acquiring a majority of the distressed debt. He has also counseled lenders in connection with an orderly exercise of remedies to achieve a practical, business oriented restructuring solution for the company and the acquiring fund. He also advises clients participating in the global secondary market for troubled and non-performing loans and claims.
Larry has presented at various conferences on such topics as “Loan To Own Strategies-An Alternative to Bankruptcy,” “Distressed Investments: Lessons from the Experts,” and “Intercreditor Issues Between First and Second Lien Lenders.”