Title: Senior Vice President
Firm: Loop Capital Markets
Age: 33
During his 11 years at Loop Capital Markets, David Gellert has become the in-house expert on tender offers, putting him in the middle of some high-profile transactions and adding to his value as a mentor in the firm.
"I joined Loop straight out of college," said Gellert, who graduated from Penn State University in 2013. "I appreciated the math behind bonds and wanted to have a long-term career."
Tender offers made "a strong comeback given the elimination of tax-exempt advance refunding" in 2017, Gellert said. He estimated he now spends half his time on tender offers nationally, and the other half covering accounts in the Midwest.
He helped the city of Chicago with three tender offers as it returned to the bond market following the COVID crisis. Chicago's goal in its tender offers was unusual, he said, in that "it wasn't just a savings play, it was a credit arbitrage play."
He also handled the tender offer in a $636.58 million transaction for San Antonio CPS Energy that enabled the utility to take out debt associated with Winter Storm Uri in 2021. That transaction won the Bond Buyer's 2023 Southwest Deal of the Year.
Gellert attributes his rapid rise from analyst to investment banking senior vice president to the guidance he received from more experienced staff. Now he has taken a lead in training new hires at Loop.
"I had some really good mentors that really helped propel my career," he said. "To pass that along really means a lot to me."
