Mr. Hammer is a Managing Director in Houlihan Lokey’s New York office, where he Co-Heads the Secondary Advisory Group focused on the secondary market for partnerships and private investments held by institutional investors. He brings with him over two decades of experience in principal investing, investment banking and building businesses that have serviced or been part of the institutional limited partner and financial sponsor communities.

Before joining the firm, Mr. Hammer was a senior managing director at Bear Stearns & Co., where he was the global head of origination for the private funds group. In this position, Mr. Hammer led a global team that focused on client development, manager research, due diligence, lead generation, contract negotiations and marketing. Prior to this, Mr. Hammer co-led Private Equity Advisors, the private equity fund-of-funds and secondary investing unit of Bear Stearns Asset Management. In this position, Mr. Hammer developed several private equity investment management programs including separate accounts, single-manager feeder funds, and a London Stock Exchange-traded perpetual capital vehicle, which had an AUM of $1.8 billion at the time of his departure. Mr. Hammer personally developed and led the team’s successful investment approach to the secondary private equity market.

In 1999, Mr. Hammer co-founded of BDC Financial Inc., a firm that provided customized investment management and advisory services to institutional and high-net-worth investors in private equity. Mr. Hammer and his partners sold this firm to Bear Stearns & Co. in 2004.

Earlier, Mr. Hammer founded two investment management firms: Gotham Investment Group, a real estate investment company capitalized by Nomura Securities, and Commonwealth Property Investors, an investment management firm formed by AEW Capital Management and the AT&T Pension Fund. Both firms focused on making direct principal investments in the former Soviet Union. Mr. Hammer established their operations in Moscow, Russia and operationalized their investment approach. Previously, Mr. Hammer held investment banking positions at Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs.

Mr. Hammer received an A.B. from Princeton University and an M.B.A. from Harvard University.