Once referred to by the New York Times as one of the 100 most creative and fiercest investment bankers on Wall Street, Ziad K. Abdelnour is a dealmaker, trader and financier with over 20 year experience in merchant banking, private equity, alternative investments and physical commodities trading. Since 1985, Ziad has been involved in over 125 transactions totaling over $30 billion in the investment banking, high yield bond and distressed debt markets and has been widely recognized for playing an integral role in those three key market sectors.

Before founding Blackhawk Partners, Inc. in 2005; a New York based private equity ”family office” that focuses on originating, structuring and acting as equity investor in management-led buyouts, strategic minority equity investments, equity private placements, consolidations, buildups, and growth capital financings mainly in the global energy and technology sectors, Ziad held numerous senior positions at European American Advisors, Inc.; THCG Inc. (formerly Hambro America Securities); Ladenburg Thalmann and Drexel Burnham Lambert’s High Yield Bond Department, where his responsibilities included investing, financing and restructuring over 100 companies spanning the industrial, logistics, consumer and manufacturing industries both in the US as well as in emerging markets.

Since 2001, Ziad has been a trusted advisor to a number of the largest family offices in the United States, Europe and the Middle East and a turnaround investor in a number of companies where Ziad’s corporate capital commitment through Blackhawk came either through acquiring those and other companies through their distressed debt or through the chapter 11 process.

Ziad has extensive connections with the Washington political, government and intelligence establishments having served since 1994 as a friend and advisor to a number of agencies and organizations associated with such entities in various capacities; especially when dealing with fiscal and foreign policy matters.

On a more personal level, Ziad is Founder and President of the US Committee for a Free Lebanon, Former President of the Arab Bankers Association of North America, Member of the Board of Governors of the Middle East Forum and Founding Member of the Financial Policy Forum, a lobbying organization whose prime mandate is to lobby members of Congress on ways and means of bridging the gap between Washington, DC and Wall Street.

Ziad enjoys an American and Lebanese dual citizenship and holds a M.B.A in financial engineering from the Wharton School of Finance at the University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelor of Science in Economics, Summa Cum Laude, from the American University of Beirut, is a regular panelist and speaker on private equity and venture capital topics at industry conferences nationwide and a business angel investor in over a dozen ventures, both in the US and abroad.

Updated November 30, 2009