Gianpiero (JP) Balestrieri is the Managing Partner of the Washington DC office of CFA. Mr. Balestrieri brings over 20 years of executive management and investment banking experience representing and advising investors, companies, developers, borrowers, lenders and acquirers in connection with all phases of investment and corporate strategy, business development, origination, valuation, structuring, and closing for M&A; divestitures; turnarounds; joint ventures; corporate, project and structured finance transactions. Mr. Balestrieri has originated and led deal execution in various sectors, including without limitation, IT, infrastructure services, energy, oil & gas, telecommunications, digital media, transportation, logistics, government contracts services, and manufacturing. Mr. Balestrieri also has extensive international experience in managing and closing very complex cross-border multi-party transactions, development, operations and projects in Europe, Latin America, Africa, Asia, among other Emerging Market regions.
Mr. Balestrieri has advised and participated as principal on divestitures, acquisitions (stock and asset), strategic equity, debt and restructurings for the development, growth and operations of existing and new business assets. As founder of Warchest Capital, he has been lead merchant banker to both corporate and project clients on the buy and sell side, and has successfully led and closed various transactions and actively leads as a principal or advisor on various capital formation strategy, acquisition roll-ups, recapitalizations, seed funding participation, corporate strategy and board advisory opportunities.
Formerly, Mr. Balestrieri was a founding Corporate Vice President and shareholder of Optiglobe Communications Inc. where he was responsible for leading the origination, negotiating and closure of the main IT and infrastructure asset based and corporate financing and exit initiatives. He led and participated on successfully closing in excess of $600MM in equity and debt transactions with lenders, investors, vendors, systems integrators and professional services partners for OptiGlobe’s global IT infrastructure operations.
Prior to OptiGlobe, Mr. Balestrieri was Corporate Director/Senior Counsel for General Electric/GEPS where he led and was responsible for representing a transaction portfolio of up to $2.0 billion per year in M&A, buy-outs, project finance and joint ventures for energy, oil & gas and equipment technology and assets, projects and services in the US, Europe and the Emerging Markets. He received the GE Excellence Award for successfully leading and closing strategic workouts, acquisitions and project finance transactions.
Before GE, he was Deputy General Counsel/Director at Bechtel-EnergyWorks where he was responsible for developing, acquiring and financing IPP projects. Mr. Balestrieri also served as a Project Finance/M&A attorney at Chadbourne & Parke LLP and as an Investment Officer at the IFC of the World Bank Group.
Mr. Balestrieri completed the GMP at Harvard Business School. He also received an Honors BA in finance/economics (summa cum laude) from the York University/London School of Economics, a J.D. (Dean’s Fellow) and MBA (finance curriculum) at the American University/WCL. Mr. Balestrieri is fluent in French, Spanish, Portuguese and Italian with a working knowledge of Arabic and Greek
Additional career highlights include:
- Successfully closed $335MM in IT Infrastructure financing and alliances with HP, GECapital, Sun, Cisco, EMC, Unisys, Nokia, Oracle, Nortel, Citibank, among others
- Led and/or Participated on over $4 billion in project finance, capital markets and M&A transactions
- Founder and CEO of GABCorp Asset Management and Warchest Capital
Broad industry experience includes the following:
- Energy, Oil & Gas
- Transportation (Maritime and Rail)
- Infrastructure (Public and Private: Telco; BOO/BOT; Development; Government Concessions)
- IT (Systems Integration, Software, Managed Services, BPO, Digital Media, Infrastructure)
- Heavy Manufacturing and Supply Chain Management
- Wholesale, Retail & Distribution
- Published Articles in "Latin Finance Magazine" and "Wall Street Corporate Counsel" on industrial and energy M&A, government concessions and privatization
- ACG in DC Capital Area and Boston
- Mid-Atlantic Angel Network
- Member of the Harvard Business Review Advisory Council
- GE Excellence Award Recipient for Outstanding Management and Leadership as Director and closing $850 million in M&A, workouts, project financing and joint ventures
- College Valedictorian
- Dean's Research Fellow on Two Volume Treatise “International Judicial Assistance in Civil and Commercial Matters
