Rick Petree

In the past 27 years, Mr. Petree has initiated, structured and secured financing for international and domestic merger & acquisition and capital markets transactions worth billions of dollars. Before joining Westwood, Mr. Petree was a co-founder of MillRock Partners, a boutique investment bank serving private middle market and public growth companies. In a joint venture with a leading international business consulting firm, MillRock offered a unique, seamless combination of world-class operational restructuring consultancy and m&a execution. MillRock was also active in raising late venture stage and development capital for U.S. companies, in both private and public capital markets. MillRock’s capabilities in each of these areas were enhanced by its combination with Westwood in June 2005. Mr. Petree was a Managing Director of S.G. Warburg & Co. until 1994. Based in London in the late 1980’s, he advised on large multinational m&a transactions, including the merger of Reed International with Elsevier and the acquisition of controlling interests in DHL by JAL, Lufthansa and Nissho Iwai. Returning to New York, he led Warburg’s banking activities in the U.S. pharmaceutical and oil and gas sectors (advising on the formation of Merck’s consumer pharma joint venture with Johnson & Johnson and financing some of the earliest Western developments of Siberian oil fields). Mr. Petree left Warburg to pursue entrepreneurial and sovereign advisory activities in Central and Eastern Europe. With partners, he founded a fast food chain in Poland; conceived, structured and raised a $200 million private equity fund for Southeast Europe negotiated multi-billion dollar “Paris Club” sovereign debt reductions for three countries; and advised Prime Ministers and Cabinet members in four countries on privatization transactions and economic development strategies. Prior to his banking career, Mr. Petree practiced law at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett (New York) and Hale and Dorr (Boston). He graduated from Harvard Law School (1978), where he was an Editor of the Harvard Law Review, and Oxford University (B.A. First Class, 1973). He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.