Centurion is pleased to announce that it has hired Daryl Boyce as Vice President of Corporate Finance. Daryl has been hired to lead Centurion Asset Management Inc.'s expansion into providing financing solutions for small and medium size enterprises. Daryl brings over 35 years of experience in this space. Commenting on this, Greg Romundt, President of Centurion stated:
"Throughout my career I've built a number of businesses. All of them have been focused on niche markets where I saw an underexploited opportunity. I started my career out of business school trading interest rate derivatives for Citibank in Toronto. At the time, in Canada there were very few doing this. It wasn't long before I was building models for an emerging opportunity in second generation (exotic) derivatives. Soon, I was running exotic currency options for Canada. Citibank asked me to move to New York to build their exotic options business and it wasn't long before I spearheaded the development their third generation (even more exotic) derivatives business. I was then asked to build an exotic options business for Citibank in Asia focused on emerging market currency (exotic options on exotic currencies) and moved to Singapore. After building this business, AIG recruited me to build their emerging markets derivatives team in Hong Kong then moved me to their head office in London to run emerging markets globally. When I left and founded Centurion, I saw an opportunity in apartments in Canada, primarily in mid-size buildings and secondary markets. Next came student housing, then lending to developers of student housing and apartments so we could buy them upon completion. We were soon providing equity to the developers of these types of product. In total I've built eleven businesses and/or business segments in my career. I love building businesses. The common links between all these investment businesses is that I've built upon what had already been built in terms of infrastructure and skills, and applied these to new underexploited opportunities I've identified along the way. I see a great opportunity in providing financial solutions to small and medium size enterprises. I have been intrigued with this space for a while, but it took some time for me to figure out exactly how I wanted to execute on the opportunity and to find the right person to lead this department. I'm confident that I've found that person in Daryl.
In the real estate lending business of Centurion Real Estate Opportunities Trust, we provide financing solutions to clients that are slightly outside the box of traditional bank lenders. Our corporate finance team will similarly seek to provide financing solutions to small- and mid-size enterprises. When I look at the landscape of financing providers, the vast majority of them fall on either one side or the other like mortgage investment corporations (real estate lending) or private debt/equity (corporate lending) funds. When you think of it though, these solution providers exist because there is often a need for a financing solution that can more fully address the capital requirements of good companies than what traditional banks may be able to provide due to the banks' constrictive boxes. So in my mind, the opportunity is to be an "alternative" bank, focusing on opportunities the banks can't or won't capitalize on. Extending the Centurion team to execute in this area means bringing on board additional expertise as we have done each time we've built out a new business segment. Centurion currently has five business segments separated into two funds, Centurion Apartment REIT and Centurion Real Estate Opportunities Trust:
Centurion Apartment REIT focuses on
Centurion Real Estate Opportunities Trust (REOT) focuses on
Hiring Daryl Boyce was our first step in this plan to build our sixth business segment. He has been charged with building this business much like how Steve Stewart built our real estate lending and joint ventures business. While I'm very attracted to the idea of a broader-based, diversified, alternative lender in a single fund, we're respectful that our existing funds went out with mandates that didn't include what we are now contemplating. As such, we plan to launch a new fund that will be designed for this vision so that existing clients can make their own choice about whether they want to be a part of more broadly diversified type of financing fund or to stick to what they already have with Centurion. We are aiming for a launch in the early part of 2017. Before then, we plan to make few additional team hires, including assembling a good independent board to oversee this fund. We will provide further updates in the near future."
Daryl Boyce's biography is available below.
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