focus
Strategic Advisory
Investment Strategies

background
Willi has over 35 years of experience in the financial industry.

Between 2001 and 2008 – before founding Ithuba – Willi was a Board Member of Bank Austria responsible for Markets & Investment Banking.

From 2005 to 2008 Willi was also a member of the UniCredit Group Executive Committee acting as Global Head of Markets responsible for revenues of EUR 2.6bn. From 1998 to 2001, Willi was the CEO of Creditanstalt Investmentbank (CAIB). Previously, from 1994 to 1998, Willi was Head of Structured Derivatives Europe and Equity Derivatives Emerging Markets at Citigroup in London.

He started his banking career in 1988, initially as a Fixed Income Fund Manager at Spar Invest KAG, and later as Head of Equities and Derivatives.

Willi holds postgraduate degrees in Economics from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, USA, and from the Paul-Nitze-School of Advanced International Studies in Bologna, Italy. He graduated from the University of Vienna with a Masters in Economics.

Willi used to advise the Austrian Ministry of Finance in public investments and debt management issues. Furthermore, he is a member of the Advisory Board of the Johns Hopkins University.

focus
Portfolio Advisory

background
Emanuel is a member of the management board at Ithuba Capital AG since 2013. He is heading the Portfolio Advisory team of Ithuba Capital, which is specializing in large and complex portfolios.

Emanuel is an experienced trader in the credit sector and has been dealing with over 25 years of experience in the financial industry. Prior to joining Ithuba Capital, he traded credit derivatives and structured correlation-products for UniCredit in London.

Besides, Emanuel was involved in the development, structuring and issuance of new investment products for both, private and institutional investors. From 2004 to 2006 Emanuel traded bonds for the Bayrische HypoVereinsbank in Munich. Previous to his relocation to London, he was managing the trading book for senior unsecured bonds of the market-making department.

After successfully completing his degree in International Business Administration in Munich, Madrid and London, Emanuel started his career in 2003 as a member of the trainee program of HypoVereinsbank.

background
Yahya has over 20 years of experience in the financial industry holding various operational and management positions in corporate and investment banking as well as asset management. He is a partner and board member since 2011.

From 2008 to 2010, Yahya was a Member of the Management Board of UniCredit Creditanstalt Investment Bank (CAIB) UK acting as COO based in London. In that capacity, Yahya was responsible for the operational management of the firm including transaction management of special situations deals, restructuring of private equity holdings, risk management, legal & compliance, finance, operations, human resources, systems infrastructure, as well as for the management of UniCredit Group’s equity brokerage subsidiaries throughout Emerging Europe, in particular in Türkiye.

Between 2006 and 2010, Yahya was COO of UniCredit Global Equities in charge of operational business management, steering and executing efficiency measures and business initiatives related to its institutional equity franchise and facilitating the implementation of UniCredit Equities’ global business strategy and global support model.

Yahya started his career in the financial industry at Investkredit Bank AG before moving to Bank Austria as an equity research analyst covering Austrian/CEE banks and insurance companies.

Yahya holds a Masters degree in International Business Administration from the University of Vienna.

focus
Corporate Finance

background
Thomas has over 30 years of experience in the area of Corporate Finance, Capital Markets, M&A, banking regulation, bank valuation and Asset Management.

He is a partner at Ithuba Capital. Before that he worked for Credit Suisse London in the Corporate and Investment Banking Department, where he focused on Corporate Finance (M&A in the industry-leading Technology Group and strategic advice to large cap clients). Prior to that, Thomas practiced law at Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton in Frankfurt and London.

During his career Thomas has advised a number of leading international companies, both in financial services (e.g. Bank Austria, Barclays, BNP, Deutsche Bank, Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, Salomon Brothers) and in industry (e.g. Deutsche Telekom, Philips, Nokia, Vodafone, WoltersKluwer, Gemplus, Daimler-Benz), with respect to transactions as well as strategic and financial issues. At Ithuba Capital, his most recent mandates include representing Österreichische Volksbank, DZ BANK and WGZ BANK in connection with the sale of their shares in Volksbank International to Sberbank of Russia (2011 2012), advising VB Real Estate and Österreichische Volksbank in connection with the sale of their container leasing division (2012), advising Österreichische Volksbank in connection with the sale of a corporate loan portfolio (2012) to financial investors and of a real estate loan portfolio to CA IMMOBILIEN (2014), advising VR-Leasing and Österreichische Volksbank in connection with the sale of their leasing companies in Poland and Rumania to Getin Holding of Poland (2014) and their leasing company in the Czech Republic to GE Money Bank, a subsidiary of GE Capital (2014), advising O1 Group in connection with its acquisition of UniCredit Bank Austria’s stake in CA IMMOBILIEN (2014), representing CA IMMOBILIEN on its acquisition of a minority stake in IMMOFINANZ AG, including a partial voluntary takeover offer (2015), advising VR-Leasing and Österreichische Volksbank in connection with the sale of their leasing company in Slovakia to KBC/CSOB Leasing (2015), advising immigon on the sale of VB Factoring Bank AG to A.B.S. Global Factoring (2015), advising ABBAG (a subsidiary of the Republic of Austria) in connection with potential solutions for Carinthia-guaranteed obligations of HETA (since 2015), and advising CA IMMO in connection with the potential merger with IMMOFINANZ (2016).

Thomas studied law at the University of Vienna and at the New York University and received a Ph.D. from the University of Vienna with a thesis on the European Central Bank. He focuses on financial work, but also remains admitted as Attorney at Law in Austria and New York; he serves as Chairman (President) of Ithuba Capital’s Supervisory Board.

focus
Financial Engineering, Risk Management
Member of the Management Board of Aquantec AG

background
Miwa has over 20 years of experience in derivatives trading and financial engineering.

Miwa joined Ithuba Capital as a Managing Partner in February 2009. In 2011 she moved to Ithuba Capital’s subsidiary Aquantec AG as a Member of the Management Board.

Before joining Ithuba Capital, Miwa was a Senior Trader for the Synthetic Credit Correlation Trading Team of UniCredit in London.

Prior to that, Miwa worked as Financial Engineer for Bank Austria in Vienna, where she was involved in the modeling and trading of equity and credit derivatives, as well as the development and implementation of risk management processes.

Between 2005 and 2006 Miwa also became an external lecturer at the Department of Finance at the School of Business, Economics and Statistics in Vienna, where she taught courses in Financial Engineering and Credit Derivatives.

Miwa holds a Master Degree in Business Administration from the University of Vienna.

focus
Portfolio Advisory

background
Konrad has been a member of Ithuba Capital since 2011 and Head of Trading in Portfolio Advisory since 2019. He has more than 20 years of expertise in the financial services industry.

Konrad is Managing Director in the Portfolio Advisory team of Ithuba Capital, which specializes in large and complex portfolios. In Portfolio Advisory, Konrad supported the run-down of multiple portfolios of Austrian bad banks and local authorities and was active in large capital market and restructuring transactions.

Prior to Ithuba, Konrad worked at Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt in Trading for FX and Commodity products and headed the team for the secondary market. In this role, he traded ETFs, ETCs, certificates and warrants for retail and institutional clients and managed the FX and commodity trading books. Konrad was involved in the structuring as well as market launch of many new products and helped build a global team with desks in Frankfurt, New York and Singapore and a wide range of covered underlyings (from EURUSD to uranium oxide and freight rates). Konrad was also heavily involved in the implementation of new systems to improve the Bank´s trading and management capacity.

Konrad began his career in 2005 in the Graduate Programme of Deutsche Bank after successfully completing his studies of International Business Administration at WU Vienna as well as the CEMS MIM programme at WU Vienna and HEC Paris. Konrad is a CFA charter holder.

focus
Financial Engineering,
Software Development

background
Dr. Georg Meyer is co-founder and CEO of Aquantec.

A theoretical physicist and financial engineer, he specializes in the development of financial and quantitative components for portfolio and risk-management software.

In this field, he draws on 25 years of experience, twelve of them with HypoVereinsbank and the UniCredit Group. As head of Quantitative Development, he worked together with Jonathan Kelly to develop the in-house risk-management system and was responsible for its evolution into a cross-asset derivative platform and a front-to-back trading system.