John Michaelson

Chief Investment Officer & Portfolio Manager

From 2006 to 2011, Mr. Michaelson served as Co-Portfolio Manager of Imperium Partners Group, employing the same investment strategy. From 1994 to 2005, Mr. Michaelson served as President, Chief Executive Officer and Portfolio Manager of Needham Investment Management, LLC. During his tenure, assets under management grew from $46 million to $1.6 billion in equity hedge funds, special situation funds and listed mutual funds. In 2004, Nelson’s ranked Needham’s flagship hedge fund, co-managed by Mr. Michaelson, as the 7th best performing equity fund across all investment styles over the prior ten years, compounding 22.7% p.a. and the only fund in the top ten with no down years.

From 1986 to 1994, Mr. Michaelson served as the Director of Corporate Finance at Needham & Company, managing its investment banking activities. During this time, Mr. Michaelson supervised a team that managed over 200 public equity offerings and private placements and over 150 merger, acquisition and divestiture transactions, and worked directly with clients on buyouts and restructuring transactions.

Mr. Michaelson's early professional career was at Morgan Grenfell & Company, Limited (London, England), The First Boston Corporation, and Drexel Burnham Lambert.

Mr. Michaelson has served in a number of public service and charitable positions. These include: Trustee of The Royal Air Force Museum (England) and Chairman of The Royal Air Force American Foundation.

Mr. Michaelson is the former Trustee of The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, the Eton College endowment, and the Children of China Pediatrics Foundation.

Mr. Michaelson is also the former Chairman and Chief Investment Officer of The Cooper Union’s endowment. The Cooper Union endowment’s annualized return of 5.36% from 2007 to 2012 ranks it as the top performing endowment during this period (source – Institutional Investor Magazine).

Mr. Michaelson has authored numerous articles in publications such as The Wall Street Journal, Pension & Investing Magazine, and The Oxford University Journal of World Economics. Mr. Michaelson is the author of a textbook published by McGraw Hill, Restructuring for Growth, and has contributed chapters to other books.

Mr. Michaelson earned a BA and MA from the University of Oxford and a MBA with distinction from The Harvard School of Business.

Mr. Michaelson is a Group Captain in The Royal Auxiliary Air Force. He is a member of The Order of St. John of Jerusalem.

Laurence Jones

Chief Executive Officer

Prior to joining Michaelson Capital Partners, Mr. Jones was the head of Portfolio Management at AXA Investment Managers in London where he oversaw a $9 billion portfolio. Under his leadership, AXA IM multi-strategy portfolios won five industry awards for risk adjusted returns. Mr. Jones drove the investment process across all asset classes and strategies. He pioneered the All Weather portfolio management style which is characterized by maximum alpha extraction and deep dive due diligence of strategies and portfolio partners globally. The largest portfolio allocations were in direct lending, trade finance, and structured credit.

Prior to AXA Investment Managers, Mr. Jones served as Chief Investment Officer of Nedgroup Investment Advisors, the alternatives investment arm of Nedbank. Mr. Jones served as Chief Risk Officer of Attica Alternative Investments Ltd. Previously, Mr. Jones managed derivatives trading desks for fifteen years at investment banks including United Financial of Japan and West Deutsche Landesbank. He also managed derivatives trading at Abu Dhabi Investment Authority.

Mr. Jones earned a BA in Philosophy and Theology and earned a Master’s Degree cum laude in Economics from California State University.

Mr. Jones is a member of the Charter Alternatives Investment Analyst Association, a member of the Professional Risk Managers International Association, has spoken at many conferences and appeared on BBC, CNN, CNBC and Bloomberg television.