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Joseph S. Fichera is co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Saber Partners, a financial advisory firm that has been recognized for innovative solutions developed on behalf of corporate and public sector clients. His company provides a unique combination of investment banking, legal, and corporate management experience.
Mr. Fichera first created a stir when he developed SABRES (share-adjusted, broker-remarketed equity securities), a preferred stock structure that challenged the conventional wisdom of the auction rate securities market. SABRES was utilized by some of the most sophisticated issuers in the U.S. markets to lower their cost of capital. Since that time, Mr. Fichera has become known for his consistent ability to provide strategic advice and apply financial principles to develop creative solutions to specific client needs.
Over the course of his more than 25-year Wall Street career, Mr. Fichera has addressed difficult and complex issues of finance, policy and corporate governance. His client list has included Fortune 500 companies, such as ExxonMobil, and GE Capital as well as the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission, Governor of California and others.
Mr. Fichera has a track record of successfully balancing the interests of public sector clients and rate-paying consumers with the financing needs of corporate bond issuers. He has advised the West Virginia, Florida, Texas and Wisconsin Public Service Commissions on the sales of billions of dollars of corporate bonds to finance projects that involved the public’s interest. These include the transition to a competitive market for electricity in Texas, repair of critical infrastructure after hurricanes in Florida and protection of the environment in West Virginia and Wisconsin. Saber navigated new ways to accomplish difficult financings through the global capital markets.
Mr. Fichera was one of the earliest critics of the auction rate securities market long before its collapse. The financial advisor to the New York Dormitory Authority, the third largest municipal bond issuer in the country, Mr. Fichera has made the case for more transparency so investors can judge liquidity risks and retail and corporate investors can decide where they want to put their money.
Before forming Saber Partners, Mr. Fichera was Managing Director and Group Head of Investment Banking Business Origination & Product Development at Prudential Securities. Prior to that, he was a Managing Director, Principal at Bear Stearns, and a Vice President in corporate finance at Smith Barney.
Mr. Fichera currently is a member of the Board of Advisors of Princeton University's Center for Economic Policy Studies and former member of the Princeton Department of Economics Advisory council under Ben Bernanke. From 1994 to 1996, President Clinton designated Mr. Fichera to serve on the Board of Directors (Audit Committee) of the Czech & Slovak American Enterprise Fund. He also served as Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary of Department of Housing & Urban Development as a political appointee under President Carter.
Stressing accountability, transparency and other principles of sound corporate governance and financial management, Mr. Fichera is the author of articles on financial issues published in Barron's and The Wall Street Journal, as well as other periodicals. He was awarded the prestigious Institutional Investor "Deal of the Year" Award back-to-back in 1991 and 1992 for transactions in both corporate and municipal finance and most recently in the asset-backed securities market in 2003 by another industry publication. Mr. Fichera has also appeared on “CNN Financial," Bloomberg Television, and National Public Radio “Marketplace” as a guest commentator on financial issues and policy, and has been profiled in The Wall Street Journal, Institutional Investor magazine and Yale Management Review.
Mr. Fichera earned his Bachelors degree from Princeton University and his MBA from Yale University's School of Management. In 1995, he returned to Princeton for a year in residence as an Executive Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. In addition to his duties at Saber, in 2008 he is a Visiting Lecturer in Public and International Affairs at Princeton University.
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See detailed Curriculum Vitae for Joseph S. Fichera
