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Stewart
Rauner, Senior Financial Advisor
In his role as Managing Director, Stewart Rauner advises clients
in the Broadband, Cable, Media and Communications Technology sectors,
providing Merger & Acquisitions, Private Placement and Financial
Advisory services. In addition, Mr. Rauner has geographic responsibility
for Katalyst’s business affairs in Israel.
After
completing his academic studies (B.A. Columbia University, 1978;
J.D. Harvard Law School, 1982), Mr. Rauner spent nine years working
as an investment banker and economic development professional
in New York, focusing on M&A work and project finance. During
this period, he also completed part-time postgraduate studies
in corporate finance and taxation at New York University.
In
1991, after serving as Vice President of Investment Banking at
Prudential Securities, he moved to Israel, where he lived for
11 years, before returning to New York in December 2002.
From 1991-95, Mr. Rauner worked as an attorney at two of Israel’s
leading corporate law firms, Herzog, Fox & Neeman and I. Fischer
& Co. (now Fischer, Behar, Chen & Co.), both in Tel Aviv,
where he utilized his investment banking background to specialize
in venture capital investments and Nasdaq offerings for Israeli
technology companies.
In
1996, Mr. Rauner established Broadband Associates, a boutique
advisory firm focusing on financing, strategy and US business
development (including strategic investment) for early-stage Israeli
and European-based communications technology companies. Over the
following seven years, he successfully executed value added commercial
arrangements and financings for companies engaged in a wide range
of leading-edgetechnologies, including carrier, enterprise and
broadband Voice over IP; cable data and telephony; softswitch;
network management/OSS; communications semiconductors; VoD/IP-TV;
freespace optical wireless communications; and wireless base station
technologies. Recent projects have involved several new areas,
including storage networking, optical components, Infiniband and
related interconnect technologies.
Mr.
Rauner has been especially effective introducing and financing
new technologies and products to be deployed by the leading US
and international cable operators, and has been active in industry
forums including CableLabs, SCTE, NCTA and CTAM.
Through
the late 1990’s, Mr. Rauner played a key role in financing,
building and selling three Israel-based companies with exits before
the market downturn—Internet Telecom, a provider of core
enabling technologies for Voice over IP (sold to Terayon, Nasdaq:
TERN), GADLine, a cable telephony systems vendor (sold to Com21,
Nasdaq: CMTO) and JOLT/Optical Access Inc., a freespace optical
wireless systems vendor (sold to MRV Communications, Nasdaq: MRVC).
Of
particular note, Mr. Rauner successfully structured and negotiated
transaction terms and related hedging strategies that protected
selling shareholders during the volatile market conditions prevailing
in 2000-2001.
More
recently, Mr. Rauner worked with clients to identify and benefit
from opportunities arising from the technology recession. These
included advising on an $18 million A round venture capital financing
for a company whose technologies lower costs and extend the capacity
of legacy wireless networks, as well as a management buyout and
subsequent restructuring (including asset sales) of the Israeli
operations of a US cable equipment vendor.
Mr.
Rauner currently serves as a Director of Popular
Telephony, Inc., a provider of middleware for VoIP semiconductors
and enterprise communications systems, and on the Advisory Board
of CableMatrix, a developer
of Quality of Service solutions enabling delivery of multimedia
and P2P applications over cable data networks.
A
dual citizen of the United States and Israel, Mr. Rauner served
as a Captain in the Israel Defense Forces and is a member of the
New York and Israel Bar.
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