Stephen J. Cooke

Prior to joining Simran, Mr. Cooke began his career as an investment banking financial analyst at Goldman Sachs where he modeled the pro forma effects of all sorts of financing and mergers & acquisitions transactions for corporate clients.
He also modeled and evaluated principal purchases of distressed real estate and related securities for Goldman’s Whitehall Street distressed real estate funds.
Mr. Cooke moved to Tiger Real Estate Partners (which later became Westbrook Partners) where he continued to direct investment in distressed real estate, participating in several interesting land development and homebuilding transactions in the California market.
He then transitioned to Lehman Brothers where he became a research analyst on the high yield desk.
Mr. Cooke supported all aspects of high yield bond, leveraged loan and distressed sales, trading and investment banking in his analyst role.
He moved on to client Loomis Sayles where he performed all the credit analysis on the over $2 billion of “busted” converts for Dan Fuss.
When convertible arbitrage boomed at the beginning of the new century, Mr. Cooke joined Arbitex Asset Management and eventually ran a greater than $1 billion convertible arbitrage book.
He most recently held a portfolio management position at SMH Capital Advisors.
At SMHCA, Mr. Cooke chaired or sat on many official and ad-hoc creditors’ committees throughout a large number of restructurings and developed many valuable industry contacts.
His vast knowledge and experience in corporate restructurings enables him to see where and know how to create value for Simran’s investors.
Mr. Cooke obtained the CFA designation in 2001, several years after graduating magna cum laude from Georgetown University with a BSBA in finance.