Ahmar Ahmad
Verified Expert in Finance
Finance Expert
New York, NY, United States
Toptal member since October 30, 2019
Ahmar, a Wharton and Columbia Business School graduate, is a hedge fund investor with experience across financial services, healthcare, and business services. Trained as a management consultant, he informs his investing with a detailed operational understanding of the business. Freelancing enables him to leverage his quantitative aptitude and modeling skills to help clients improve growth, enhance margins, and better allocate capital.
Career Highlights
Education Highlights
Case Studies
Industry Expertise
- Business Services
- HR & Staffing
- Energy, Utilities & Waste
- Finance
- Banking
- Credit Cards & Transaction Processing
- Investment Banking
- Venture Capital & Private Equity
Other Expertise
- Financial Modeling
- Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A)
- Fintech
- Investing
- Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A)
- Strategy
- Valuation
Work Experience
Portfolio Manager
Millennium
- Ran a $100 million GMV equity market-neutral portfolio focused on financial services, fintech, payments, and information services.
- Promoted to portfolio manager within six months of joining the team as a senior analyst.
- Expanded team domain expertise to the cutting edge of fintech, including AI-driven lending, BNPL, crypto, and emerging market payments.
Senior Analyst
Blue Mountain Capital
- Helped launch a market-neutral long/short portfolio focused on global financial institutions and business services companies.
- Evaluated a $7 billion LBO of a publicly traded data services company by building a bottoms-up operating model, creating investment committee presentations, directing operational and financial due diligence, and authoring the investment memorandum.
- Analyzed a dividend swap strategy for a global volatility fund to determine whether bottoms-up analysis led to the mispricing of dividend probabilities in European companies.
Principal
Roystone Capital
- Co-founded a hedge fund, which managed $3 billion of assets at its peak, with a mandate to invest across the capital structure in credit and equity instruments.
- Invested in merger arbitrage strategies in the managed care sector, including merger announcements for CI, ANTM, AET, and HUM. The analysis included pro forma analysis of mergers pre- and post-deal and the probability of passing anti-trust scrutiny.
- Modeled the impact of healthcare reform on hospital companies, leading to a sizable investment in HCA.
- Researched the impact of immigration reform on IT service companies and invested in Cognizant Technology Solutions (NASDAQ: CTSH).
- Led diligence in a private label credit card company to determine whether it was adequately forecasting credit losses, which led to an investment in Synchrony Financial (NYSE: SYF).
- Led investment in "busted" IPO of merchant acquirer/payment processor, First Data, following weak sales results in its North America GBS Segment, leveraging numerous channel checks on its sales force and competitive position to inform the purchase.
- Invested in sovereign debt and GDP warrants of the Republic of Argentina due to a legal dispute with a large hedge fund. The process included meetings with central bankers, policymakers, politicians, and economists to understand the macro backdrop.
Partner
Owl Creek Asset Management
- Evaluated ideas as a generalist for a $3.5 billion event-driven equity/distressed debt hedge fund.
- Served as a panelist on "The European Debt Crisis" for the American Bankruptcy Institute's 14th Annual New York City Bankruptcy Conference, providing an investment framework around sovereign debt.
- Performed a market survey of financial planners to assess the true liability of Cigna's variable annuity death benefit reserves, leading to significant investment in its stock.
- Bought financial stocks during the financial crisis after the US government unveiled its Troubled Asset Relief Program, including BAC, C, JPM, and FITB.
- Invested in UK bank perpetual preferred stock after government capital injections, researching holders' rights through prospectus reviews and determining appropriate investment strategy by building models to value securities via distressed exchanges.
- Researched the derivatives exchange CME Group following the failure of MF Global, leading to an investment in equity due to a misunderstanding of losses to a clearing institution.
- Invested in Lehman Brothers Holdings, Inc. following its bankruptcy and Chapter 11 reorganization, valuing the estate and projected distributions among the various subsidiaries through the flow of equity and intercompany loans.
- Led investments in Irish financial institutions, including Anglo-Irish senior bonds, Bank of Ireland lower tier 2 debt, and Irish Covered Bonds, creating detailed models determining capitalization needs, security holder rights, and risk-reward.
- Built a financial model for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac following their conservatorship, leading to out of the money option investments in the GSE preferred stock.
Associate
Stern Stewart
- Served as a corporate finance consultant implementing the "Economic Value Added" (EVA) framework within Fortune 500 companies.
- Coordinated a global research project examining the impact of revenue growth on value creation, later published as the Harvard Business Review article, "Champions of Profitable Growth."
- Built a new store investment model for Koninklijke Ahold N.V., which was adopted by the CFO for the evaluation of all future capital expenditures and real estate transactions.
- Created an outsourcing operating model for IBM, which was named a "Worldwide Best Practice."
- Designed a customized economic profit framework for Williams Companies.
Education
Master of Business Administration (MBA) Degree in Value Investing
Columbia Business School - New York, NY
Bachelor's Degree in Finance and Accounting
University of Pennsylvania - Philadelphia, PA
Skills
Finance
Valuation, Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A), Financial Modeling, Three-statement Modeling, Credit Investing, Value Investing, Asset Allocation, Valuation Modeling, Equity Valuation, Equity Research, Equity Research Analysis, Credit Analysis, Finance Strategy, Market Research, Valuation Multiples, Specialty Finance, Consumer Lending, Forecasting, Revenue & Expense Projections, CFO, M&A (Buy-side), Investment Return Scenario Analysis, Return Analysis, Due Diligence, Accounting, Cash Flow Forecasting, Debt Restructuring, Financial Restructuring, Data Analysis, Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A), Equity Offerings, Private Equity, Private Equity Valuation, Microfinancing, Micro Lending, Budgeting, Economic Value Added
Output Software
Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint
Data & Analysis Software
Bloomberg, Capital IQ
Industry Expertise
Financial Services, Healthcare, Capital Markets, Venture Capital, Public Companies, Professional Services, Asset Management, Real Estate, Insurance, Health Insurance, Small Business, Credit Cards, Financial Markets, Telecommunications, Retail & Wholesale, Energy
Geographic Expertise
Europe, Argentina, United States, Latin America (LATAM), Asia, Canada, Brazil, Turkey, Venezuela
Other
Fintech, Investing, Portfolio Management, Equity, Equity Markets, Distressed/Special Situations, Strategy, Market Research & Analysis, Equity Investment, Bankruptcy & Insolvency, Payment Processing, Business Strategy, Business Model Strategy, Fintech Consultant, Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL), Scenario Analysis, Business Planning, Business Models, Investor Presentations, eCommerce, Waterfall Modeling, Excel Expert, Excel 365, Investment Analysis, Financial Analysis, Competitor Analysis & Profiling, Bankruptcy, Restructuring, Hedge Funds, Data Research, Stock Analysis, Stock Market, Research, Alternative Investments, Investments, Data Analytics, Business Services, Emerging Markets, Business Operations, Small Business Consultants, Business Intelligence Consultant, Small Business Management, Pitch Decks, SaaS, Excel VBA, Distressed Assets, Financials
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