Seasoned Investment Professionals with 85+ Years of Combined Experience
Our team
Senior Managing Director
Frank B. Turner
Prior to Co-founding Celeres Capital, Mr. Turner was a Managing Director for a LA based credit hedge fund. He was responsible for sourcing and conducting due diligence on prospective investments and was a member of the firm’s Management and Investment Committees.
Before joining the fund in 2016, he served as the Portfolio Manager for the MIG Diversified Fund at MIG Capital (Merage family office, creators of HotPockets), responsible for managing all aspects of the investment program and leading the investment committee. While at MIG, Mr. Turner invested in and provided strategic direction to multiple top tier asset managers, a point-of-sale consumer lending firm, and multiple fintech and loan origination platforms. Prior to MIG in 2008, Frank served as the Consumer Innovation Executive at Bank of America in Charlotte, NC managing firm-wide initiatives across various consumer banking divisions. He holds two patents in financial product design. Mr. Turner began his career in Goldman’s Structured Finance and Portfolio Credit Groups. He ended his tenure as Treasurer of a $20 billion alternative investment franchise, where he was responsible for over $4 billion in financings, credit facilities, and synthetic leverage transactions.
Mr. Turner graduated cum laude with a B.B.A. in Finance from Howard University in 2000 and serves on the Board of Visitors for the Howard School of Business.
Senior Managing Director
Chris Valentine
Prior to Co-founding Celeres, Mr. Valentine was a Co-Founder & Co-managing partner of TSU Capital, a boutique financial firm advisory headquartered in New York, offering strategic and advisory services for institutional clients with a focus on structured finance, financial services, real estate and energy.
Prior to forming TSU, Chris was one of the co-founders and Head of Investment Banking at Bonwick Capital Partners, a boutique investment bank in New York. Prior to forming Bonwick, Mr. Valentine accumulated a decade of experience in structured finance, private equity and M&A. Experience in emerging markets via founding Dubai-based consulting firm Valentine & Company as well as being a Director – Private Equity & Real Estate at Istithmar World (a Dubai Sovereign Wealth Fund). Significant investment exposure co-managing a $3.8Bn portfolio of private equity investments in global financial services and a $1.8Bn portfolio of real estate/lodging investments in Africa. Mr. Valentine began his career in the Global M&A Group at JPMorgan before joining Goldman Sachs, where he split his time between the Principal Finance Group in Structured Products and the Financial Institutions Group in Investment Banking. Accumulating extensive experience in corporate finance, mergers & acquisitions, private equity investment and direct portfolio management globally; previously a member of several boards of directors for financial services companies internationally.
Chris has a B.B.A. Finance (with an independent study in Actuarial Science) from Howard University in 2001.
Managing Partner
Paul Carey, CFA
Prior to Co-founding Celeres, Paul has worked with financial institutions, asset managers, the Federal Oversight Board and commercial clients, consulting on investment and management functions, business plan formation, forecasting models, capital structure planning as well as policy matters. From 2002 thru 2015, and just prior to his move to Puerto Rico, Paul was a Partner at Fountain Capital Management, an Institutional Asset Management firm with $2.5 billion in AUM. He was a member of the Investment Committee, the Management Committee and functioned as a Portfolio Manager and Investment Analyst. Fountain Capital specialized in investments in the High Yield Corporate Bond and Leveraged Loan markets. Fountain was sold to a joint venture partner in 2015. Paul’s prior work experience includes Sprint Corporation in Corporate Development/Corporate Finance evaluating M&A transactions, and Equity Research at the investment bank George K. Baum & Company as an associate analyst. In his career, Paul has had investment research coverage responsibility for industries as varied as Telecommunications and Cable, Automotive, Finance, Homebuilders, Consumer Products, Professional Services and many more.
Paul has his MBA in Finance and Economics from DePaul University in Chicago and earned the right to use the CFA designation in 2005.
He has lived and worked in Puerto Rico since January of 2016.
Partner
Sean Valentine
Prior to helping launch Celeres as a founder team member, Mr. Valentine was an Associate at TSU Capital, where he was a founding member of the team focusing on Investment Banking and Whole Loan Advisory. Prior to TSU Capital, Mr. Valentine completed the financial analyst program at Bonwick Capital focusing on Investment Banking and Whole Loan Advisory.
Sean is a 2013 graduate of Howard University, where he received a B.B.A. in Finance.