Michael is a senior member of the Merger Leadership Group within the Investment Banking Division. He specializes in advising clients considering mergers and acquisitions in the Industrials and Natural Resources sectors. He joined Goldman Sachs as a partner in 1998 and was co-head of the Mergers & Acquisitions Department from 1999 to 2001. From 2001 to 2004, Michael was based in Hong Kong and was head of Investment Banking for Asia Ex-Japan. Upon his return to New York, he became co-head of the Industrials and Natural Resources group.

Michael has served on the Partnership Committee, and during his time in Hong Kong, served on the Asian Management Committee. Prior to joining the firm, Michael was a managing director at Salomon Brothers Inc, where he ran the Global Mergers & Acquisitions Group. Michael earned a BA from Wesleyan University in 1980 and an MBA from the Wharton School of Business in 1985. He is a trustee of Choate Rosemary Hall and chairman of their Finance Committee and is a member of the Special Projects Committee of Memorial Sloan Kettering Hospital.

Tom Miles
Managing Director, Mergers & Acquisitions
JP Morgan

Mr. Miles is a Managing Director in JPMorgan's Mergers & Acquisitions group and has extensive experience in advising both domestic and international clients on a broad variety of assignments including mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, leveraged buyouts, joint ventures, spin-offs, split-offs, hostile offers and defense.  Mr. Miles joined JPMorgan in 1994 and has been in the Mergers & Acquisition group for his entire JPMorgan career.  Over the years, Mr. Miles has gained transaction experience working across a wide variety of industry sectors including Transportation, Diversified Industrial, Healthcare, Paper, Packaging and Building Products, Consumer and Chemicals. Mr. Miles is also a member of JPMorgan’s Fairness Opinion Committee. Mr. Miles received his BA from Duke University.

Ken Berliner
President
PETER J. SOLOMON

Kenneth Berliner is the President of Peter J. Solomon Company and heads its Mergers and Acquisition Group. In addition to his management responsibilities he spends the majority of his time sourcing and executing engagements and transactions for clients.

Mr. Berliner joined the firm in 1992 and has over 20 years experience advising clients on mergers and acquisitions, divestitures, restructurings and leveraged investments. He also has extensive experience in and dedicates much of his time to strategic advisory and principal assignments as well as public and private financings. Mr. Berliner has executed numerous transactions across a wide range of industries and is best known for his knowledge of the retail and distribution, consumer products and healthcare sectors. He also covers and represents a number of financial sponsors.

At Peter J. Solomon Company, Mr. Berliner’s selected clients have included: Accenture Ltd., Advanstar Holdings Corp., Alliance One International, Allied Domencq plc, Au Bon Pain Co., Inc., Borders Group, Inc., Building Materials Holding Corporation, Cardinal Health, Inc., Centennial Cellular Corp., Crown Pacific, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Inc., DIMON Inc., Duff & Phelps Credit Rating Co., Galerias Preciados S.A., Guitar Center, Inc., Handleman Company, Hellman & Friedman LLC, Henry Schein, Inc., Kelso & Company, Leggett Stores, Inc., McKesson Corporation, McKinsey & Co., Michaels Stores, Mirant Corporation, Montgomery Ward & Co., Inc., Nichols Institute, Novatel Inc., Office Depot, Inc., Paxar Corporation, Perry Drug Stores, Inc., Phillips-Van Heusen Corporation, Pope Resources, LP, Pope & Talbot, Inc., Powerfood Inc., Priority Healthcare Corp., Reed International plc, Rohn Industries, Inc., Schlumberger Limited, Thomas H. Lee Company, The Tokyo Electric Power Company, Incorporated, Walgreen Company, Walter Industries, Williams-Sonoma, Inc., and Zenith Electronics Corporation.
Prior to joining PJSC, Mr. Berliner was a Vice President at Salomon Brothers, Inc., in its Mergers and Acquisitions Department. He has also worked as an Associate in Bank of America’s Leveraged Buyout and Acquisitions Group and as an accounting and tax specialist at Deloitte Haskins & Sells.

Mr. Berliner received an M.B.A. from Harvard University and an A.B. from Duke University graduating magna cum laude with distinction.

Marshall Sonenshine
Chairman and Managing Partner
SONENSHINE PARTNERS

Marshall Sonenshine is Chairman and Managing Partner of New York investment banking firm Sonenshine Partners. Sonenshine was previously Partner in Wolfensohn & Company, the M&A boutique headed by former Salomon Brothers’ head of banking Jim Wolfensohn and US Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker. Sonenshine was part of the leadership team that merged Wolfensohn first into Bankers Trust, where he headed Media M & A and Aerospace/Transportation M & A, and later into Deutsche Bank, where Sonenshine was asked to serve as Co-Head of M&A. Prior to joining Wolfensohn, Sonenshine was a banker with Salomon Brothers in New York. In 2009, he was named an Adjunct Professor of Finance at Columbia Business School.

Sonenshine holds a BA, magna cum laude, from Brown University and a JD from Harvard Law School, where he served as an Editor of the Harvard Law Review. He studied at L’Institut d’Etudes Politiques in Paris and, while at law school, he served as a Teaching Fellow in International Relations at Harvard University’s Government Department and an Instructor in Legal Methods and in the International Program at the Law School. Following Harvard he became law clerk to Hon. Lawrence Pierce of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in New York.

Sonenshine counsels numerous leading companies and has advised on numerous leading transactions worldwide, including the Disney/ABC merger, the merger of International Lease Finance Corporation into America International Group, the global restructuring of GPA Group plc with General Electric, the restructuring of AEG, the global industrial group within Daimler Benz, the Sony/Columbia Pictures/Guber Peters Entertainment merger, the sale of the Structural Dynamics to EDS, the hostile defense of The United States Shoe Corporation, the merger of Chancellor Media and Capstar (and later Clear Channel), the sale of Abaqus to Dassault Systèmes SA, the recapitalization of KKR-and-Wachovia backed New South Communications (later Nuvox), the sale of Riverstone Networks to Alcatel, and many others.

Sonenshine’s civic and charitable affiliations include serving as a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a Trustee and Chairman of Development for the boards of The International Center of Photography and Jazz at Lincoln Center, a past member of the Brown Annual Fund Executive Committee and Vice Chairman of the board of New York-based ArtsConnection. He has served on the Obama New York Tri-State Regional Finance Committee and has led political fundraising events including in 2008 for the Obama Victory Fund and Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, Senator Mark Warner (D-Va) and for Delaware Democratic Governor Elect Jack Markell. Sonenshine is an author and speaker on business and financial matters. He has spoken at numerous financial services industry conferences and most recently as a panelist on financial reform at a 2008 Harvard Law School conference and a guest lecturer in Corporate Finance and restructuring at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He and his wife, Dr. Therese Rosenblatt, live in New York and have three sons.

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