Allen Puwalski, CFA

Chief Investment Officer & Co-portfolio Manager

Bank investing is a vocation. Policy is a passion.

Allen started his career over 30 years ago as a bank examiner and capital markets specialist for the FDIC in its New York region. When he left the FDIC in 2004, he was the Chief of Bank Analysis in the FDIC’s Division of Insurance and was managing the analysis, publications, and policy development of a 15-person multi-disciplinary team of PhD economists, CPAs, CFAs, and commissioned bank examiners. The substantive work of this group included bank failure projection modeling, early development of bank stress testing, and the quantitative justification for risk-based deposit insurance pricing.

After several years as global financial sector team lead for CFRA, an independent research firm specializing a forensic accounting research and analytics, Mr. Puwalski joined Paulson and CO in 2007 as the fund’s first financials sector specialist. At Paulson, Allen executed complex transactions with quantifiable risks and high returns across the full capital structure, in both liquid and PE-style investing, U.S. and Europe.

Mr. Puwalski was also a director at OneWestBank, N.A. prior to its sale to CIT Group in 2015.

During SoFi’s listing process Allen was head of Community Bank Strategy.

Mr. Puwalski earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics and certificate of finance from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and he is a chartered financial analyst (CFA).

Robert Lacoursiere

Co-portfolio manager

Robert has over 30 years experience in the global financials sector. Most recently (2019-2022) he has been providing ad hoc investment/valuation advice to a family office on Global bank opportunities. Previously Robert co-founded and was the Co- CEO (2016-2018) of Berlin Global Advisors. a consulting firm helping asset managers generate ideas and monitor their exposure to potential political, regulatory and policy changes. He previously provided independent investment advice on global financials through his firm rjl advice.

From 2012 to 2014, Robert was the Managing Partner of Petrarca Capital, a Global Financial Sector focused thematic driven Equity Long/Short Hedge Fund. Prior to co-founding Petrarca, he was a Partner & Head of the Global Banks Team at Paulson & Co. (2008-2012). Robert joined Paulson having covered US Mortgage and Specialty Finance as a widely-respected sell-side equity research analyst at Banc of America Securities from 2004 to 2008. Prior to that he was the Head of Financial Strategy at Capital One (2003-2004) and covered U.S. mid-cap banks at Lehman Brothers (2002-2003), where he had also been the Director of Latin American Equity Research (2000-2002). He headed the Latin American Financial Institutions Equity Research Group at Bear Stearns (1997-2000) as well as at Santander Securities (1995-1997).

Before his time on the sell side, Robert worked at the Bank of Nova Scotia providing country risk, banking sector analysis & acquisition opportunities for the Board (1987-1991, 1993-1995).

Robert has an M.B.A. from I.E.S.E. in Spain (1993) and a B.A. from the University of Western Ontario in Canada (1985).