Our Team
SMI Group’s senior professionals are directly involved in every transaction. Our senior professionals are augmented by our seasoned advisors, associates, analysts and other professionals retained by SMI Group for specific assignments. This commitment to providing hands-on experienced leadership is at the heart of our success and growth.
Our senior professionals have considerable experience leading businesses and transactions and advising corporations, financial institutions and individual investors. The team has experience in the Americas, Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle East. Our professionals’ experience includes:
- International policy and organizations
- Management of multinational businesses and large projects
- Sophisticated cross-border investing, mergers and acquisitions
- Capital Markets financings, including:
- Equity and debt issuances
- Initial public offerings (IPOs), follow-on and secondary offerings, PIPEs, SPACs, reverse mergers and reverse takeovers (RTOs), listings and dual-listings
- Restructurings and reorganizations
- Venture capital and private equity formation, sponsorship and investing
- Trading of financial instruments and natural resources
- Development, construction, financing, sale and leasing of major real estate projects
- Mining, exchanges, trading and banking
- International law and legal requirements of principal nations, including exchange compliance, AML and KYC compliance
Our senior professionals have invested in, and served as chairmen, presidents and CEOs of companies in alternative and traditional energy, banking, beauty products, broadcasting, construction and infrastructure, consumer products, education, entertainment, finance, food products, wealth management, manufacturing, media, publishing, real estate, technology, telecommunications and wealth management.
Many of our senior professionals previously also were investment bankers and lawyers with global firms, including, among others: Merrill Lynch; Clifford Chance LLP; Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP; Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP; Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker LLP; and Shearman & Sterling LLP. One our professionals currently leads the substantial real estate practice group for one of Los Angeles’ leading law firms. Three of our professionals are partners or of counsel to law firms that specialize in mergers and acquisitions, corporate finance and complex financial transactions and real estate.
Iconic companies and assets sold or acquired by our senior professionals include, among many others: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, United Artists, MGM Grand, Bally’s, Desert Inn (now Wynn Hotel), Sands (now, the Venetian), Dunes (now Bellagio), Earls Court/Olympia (largest exhibition center in London), MITEC (largest exhibition center in Malaysia), Metro Traffic Networks, Premiere Radio Networks and major infrastructure projects throughout Southeast Asia. Our senior professionals have advised hundreds of other major corporations and properties.
Advisors: SMI Group’s other advisors include, among others:
- One of the leading venture capitalists in the Nordic countries. He has raised and invested nearly $500,000,000 in cleantech and related sectors. Presently, his venture capital firm has interests in 16 companies based in Finland, Sweden and Germany, many of which have worldwide operations.
- The chairman of the Bitcoin Foundation, who has been instrumental in most of the largest offerings and who was an early investor in Blockchain technologies and markets.
- A partner in a U.S. merchant banking firm who has founded, co-founded, financed and advised numerous technology companies in a wide range of sectors, including big data, blockchain, cyber-technology and encryption, data storage and distribution, agriculture, water and food and gaming. He also has substantial experience in gaming, agriculture and real estate. A substantial portion of his transactions are cross-border involving Europe and the Middle East.
- A highly-regarded entrepreneur with extensive experience in entertainment, media and technology. His experience ranges from producing award-winning theatrical motion pictures, television series and stage plays, to structuring and securing more than $500 million of financing for media and technology, to incubating technology companies and creating cross-platform and cross-border partnerships. Currently based in Toronto, he also has resided in the United States and Japan.
- A senior entertainment and media executive and lawyer, with extensive experience advising clients regarding financing, corporate governance, international partnerships, licensing and supervision of litigation for businesses within and outside of the entertainment industry. He was previously president of a major network television supplier, a senior executive of the ABC Television Network and a U.S. Navy aviator who flew 144 combat missions.
- An innovative advertising and corporate communications executive. The recipient of the Clio (the advertising industry’s most significant award) and a nominee for the prestigious Pulitzer Prize, he led a pioneering digital advertising agency, all marketing and promotion for Fox Broadcasting, including the launch of American Idol and all creative and corporate communications for Toyota in North America. He was managing director of D’Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles in Los Angeles and a senior executive for Saatchi & Saatchi. Among other national advertising accounts in North America, he led significant business for General Motors, Proctor and Gamble, Phillips Sonicare, Activision, Target, Yamaha and Pioneer.
