On Friday, December 2, John DeCaro and Chris Cebula (AIM ’09) of Elementum Advisors visited Dr. Krause’s Fixed Income course and the AIM program. This was the second year that the pair addressed Marquette finance students.
Dr. Krause said, “John and Chris did an excellent job discussing catastrophe (“Cat”) bonds and other structured products. These high-yielding debt instruments are linked to insurance companies and their payouts are related to certain natural catastrophes such as hurricanes and earthquakes. I know the students appreciated their presentation.”
Elementum Advisors is an independent alternative investment manager specializing in collateralized natural event reinsurance investments. The Chicago-based firm was launched in December 2009 by John DeCaro, Tony Rettino, and Mike Frances.Prior to launching Elementum, John DeCaro co-managed the Reinsurance and Risk-Linked Investments team at Stark Investments from September 2005 through November 2009. He has nearly 20 years of investment experience managing a variety of reinsurance and risk-linked investment strategies. John earned a B.S. in Finance from the University of South Carolina and an M.S. in Financial Markets and Trading from the Illinois Institute of Technology. He received the Chartered Financial Analyst designation in 1997.
Chris Cebula, CAIA, joined Elementum as an Analyst in June 2010. Prior to Elementum he worked in an Operations/Trading Assistant role at Phalanx Capital Management, an asset management company based in Chicago. Chris graduated magna cum laude from Marquette’s Applied Investment Management Program in June 2009. He is a member of the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst Association and has passed Level III of the CFA examination.
Dr. Krause said, “We continue to bring top investment professionals to campus. John and Chris are good examples – I doubt if students at other schools have the opportunity to hear from the founding principal of one of the largest Cat bond hedge funds. Besides the unique information John and Chris provided, they also offered the students valuable career advice. It was a privilege to have them visit our students at Marquette.”
