Chartwell is pleased to announce Blackstone has successfully completed a minority equity investment in Salas O’Brien, a leading employee-owned engineering and technical services firm.

Michael Grad

Michael is a senior advisor to Chartwell and its clients on special situations including, debt restructurings, public company M&A, and other specialty areas. With more than 30 years of experience in the investment banking and insurance industries, he also assists on numerous corporate finance engagements by utilizing his extensive background in M&A and leveraged finance.

Professional Experience

Michael was a Managing Director at Chartwell from 2017 to 2021. Prior to Chartwell, Michael was a Senior Managing Director in the Restructuring Group at AIG, which was responsible for successfully repaying $182 billion of government assistance. Michael was involved in the repayment of the Federal Reserve Bank ($49B), asset sales ($55B), capital markets financing ($20B), and the renegotiation of the U.S. Treasury TARP investment into common stock ($49B). After the government repayment (including a $23B profit), Michael served as Corporate VP-Finance and COO of the AIG Finance Department for four years.

Prior to AIG, Michael was an investment banker for 25 years. He led the U.S. Financial Sponsor coverage group at ABN AMRO for seven years and served as a Managing Director in Financial Sponsor Coverage at UBS and as a Managing Director in M&A at Bear Stearns. Furthermore, he was the founder and head of the Bankruptcy and Restructuring and Leveraged Finance groups at Schroder Wertheim & Co. (now part of Citigroup). Michael began his career as a corporate and tax lawyer at Simpson, Thacher & Bartlett.

Since 2009, Michael has been an Adjunct Professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Business where he teaches a second-year elective in Financial Restructuring.

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