Michael Warden has more than 27 years of capital markets experience with an extensive focus on the mortgage sector. He is the managing principal and CEO of Invictus Capital Partners, which was selected as the joint venture partner and manager for all Carlyle Real Estate debt strategies in 2008. In that role, Mr. Warden managed the investment of more than $2 billion in equity capital. Prior to forming Invictus, Mr. Warden was a senior managing director and head of Fixed Income at Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co. (FBR). At FBR, he was responsible for the establishment and build out of the fixed income business for which he developed an origination, banking, sales and trading platform. He also was instrumental in the acquisition and integration of a mortgage origination company. Within two years the business underwrote in excess of $30 billion in MBS securities and originated, purchased and securitized over $8 billion in whole loans. Previously, Mr. Warden was managing director and head of ABS and CMBS at Bank of America Securities (BOA), where he was responsible for the origination and securitization of all mortgage products. At BOA, he was integral in the establishment of both the ABS and CMBS businesses.
Robert Konigsberg has more than 27 years of experience and serves as COO and CFO of Invictus Capital Partners. Prior to joining Invictus, Mr. Konigsberg was a managing director at The Carlyle Group. During his 15-year tenure at Carlyle, Mr. Konigsberg served as the Chief Financial Officer of Carlyle’s Real Assets segment, which represented approximately $30 billion of assets under management across real estate, energy and infrastructure. Mr. Konigsberg’s responsibilities at Carlyle included oversight for all aspects of fund/partnership compliance, controls, investor reporting, interest rate and currency hedging, oversight of quarterly valuation processes, negotiation of numerous fund-level subscription and asset-backed credit facilities, SEC segment reporting and segment budgeting and forecasting. In addition, Mr. Konigsberg was instrumental in the execution and structuring of more than 250 investment acquisitions and more than 100 exits, with the objectives to structure efficiently for tax, ERISA and divestiture. Mr. Konigsberg was also responsible for developing fund terms and structures with investors, including public and government pension funds, corporate pension funds, endowments, banks, insurance companies, high net worth individuals and feeder funds. Prior to joining Carlyle in 1999, Mr. Konigsberg was a senior manager with Arthur Andersen, where he served real estate and financial services clients. Mr. Konigsberg is a graduate of the Kogod School of Business at American University.
Dane Smith is a founding member of Invictus Capital Partners, with 13 years of mortgage finance and capital markets experience. Mr. Smith oversees all research and analytics, and is responsible for identifying and sourcing new investment opportunities. He is instrumental in creating and implementing the analytical framework and models that Invictus uses to analyze and predict the performance of mortgage credit for both residential securities and whole loan investments. Prior to Invictus, Mr. Smith worked at Friedman, Billings, Ramsey, & Co. (FBR) as vice president of Investment Banking. At FBR, Mr. Smith helped create all analytics processes and tools for mortgage collateral and security analysis for principal investment, and was responsible for managing all aspects of mortgage backed securitization finance for both principal and third party transactions. Mr. Smith’s securitization responsibilities at FBR included collateral analysis, security structuring, rating agency coordination, due diligence, investor marketing and deal documentation review. Mr. Smith started his career as an analyst at Wachovia Securities in the Investment Banking Asset Securitization group. Mr. Smith received a B.E., magna cum laude, from Vanderbilt University, with dual majors in Chemical Engineering and Mathematics.
Peter Zimmer is head of Capital Markets at Invictus Capital Partners, with more than 14 years of mortgage finance experience. He has been essential in the selection and pricing of more than $2 billion in RMBS credit since 2008. Previously, Mr. Zimmer was vice president of Whole Loan Trading at Friedman, Billings, Ramsey, & Co. (FBR), where he built the whole loan acquisition platform necessary to trade whole loans and manage an RMBS portfolio. While at FBR, Mr. Zimmer purchased and managed a portfolio in excess of $6 billion in residential whole loans. Among Mr. Zimmer’s responsibilities were valuation, management and pricing of mortgage product offerings at FBR’s wholly-owned, mortgage originator. Prior to joining FBR, Mr. Zimmer was a whole loan trader at GMAC-RFC in Minneapolis, where he was responsible for the pricing and acquisition of both prime and non-prime whole loan pools. Mr. Zimmer is a graduate of the University of North Dakota from which he earned a degree in financial management.
Carl Bell is a lead investor with Invictus Capital Partners with over 24 years of institutional asset management experience. Mr. Bell is focused on the identification, sourcing, and management of credit investments drawn from the full spectrum of consumer, real estate, and corporate obligations. Mr. Bell has developed substantial sector expertise in the area of structured credit instruments, including high yield and distressed real estate credit. Previously, Mr. Bell co-founded Five Ten Capital, an alternative asset manager focused on deploying equity and debt capital into the single-family rental market segment. Five Ten was subsequently sold to a large mortgage and real estate investor. He has also served as a Senior Portfolio Manager and Team Leader for Structured Credit for both Amundi Smith Breeden (“ASB”) and Putnam Investments. At ASB he had the additional responsibility of Deputy Chief Investment Officer. Mr. Bell holds an MBA from The Fuqua School of Business, Duke University where he was a Fuqua Scholar and received the James G. Hanes Scholarship. He earned a BS in Mathematics at Carnegie Mellon University.
Mr. Koenigsberger is currently a senior managing director at Invictus and is co-President of its Commercial Real Estate Group. Prior to Invictus he was co-CEO of CV Holdings, Inc, a specialty finance company with ownership in finance platforms including a servicer and asset manager of residential NPLs, an originator and asset manager of CRE bridge loans and a small balance equipment finance company. CV invested and asset managed over $500MM UPB in assets. Prior to CV, Mr. Koenigsberger was a founding partner of ROCA Management, a long-short real estate securities fund focused on small cap equity REITs and a Managing Director at XE Capital, where he headed worldwide real estate, overseeing a portfolio of over $2 billion in assets. Prior to ROCA, Mr. Koenigsberger was a partner of Apollo Real Estate Advisors (AREA), a large private equity real estate firm, where he was responsible for hospitality, homebuilder, and other commercial real estate investments. He also started Apollo’s first Mezzanine Fund in a joint venture with GMAC. He oversaw over his tenure gross assets in excess of $10 billion. Mr. Koenigsberger graduated summa cum laude from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
Mr. Witkin is currently a Senior Managing Director at Invictus and Co President of its Commercial Real Estate Group. Prior to Invictus, he was Co- Ceo of CV Holdings, Inc., a specialty finance company with ownership in platforms which included a servicer and asset manager of residential NPLs; an originator and asset manager of commercial real estate bridge loans and a small balance equipment finance company. CV invested and asset managed financings of over $500 million. Prior to CV Holdings, Mr. Witkin was a Partner of the Roseview Group, a real estate investment and advisory firm following his role as the CEO/Chief Restructuring Officer of, the predecessor company to CV Holdings, CBRE Realty Finance Corp, which had assets in excess of $2.3 billion. Prior to CBRE Realty Finance he was an Executive Vice President at FleetBoston Financial and its successor corporation Bank of America. At FleetBoston he managed the growth of the Commercial Real Estate Group from $4 billion to more than $24 billion of loans and founded TriSail Capital Corporation, a mezzanine lender with $2 billion of assets. In addition to managing the Commercial Real Estate Group, he had direct responsibility at various points during his tenure for: National Asset Based Lending, Corporate Syndications, Leverage Finance and Financial Institutions Group. He began his career at Citibank Asset Based Lending and Citicorp Real Estate, Inc., led First Chicago's Florida Real Estate Group, was COO of a Florida residential homebuilder for seven years, and was President and CEO of Associated Mortgage Investors, a public equity REIT. Mr. Witkin earned a BA with honors from Hofstra University and an MBA from the NYU Stern School.