Securities Analysis Center Fact Sheet

What: Securities Analysis Center, one of only a handful of programs in the United States melding traditionally separate but related areas of finance and accounting to provide research and education applicable to modern securities markets.

Why: Partnering to raise the visibility of Portland as a regional hub for money management, providing graduates with the training that companies seek, and leveraging Oregon’s traditional Pacific Rim orientation to educate students on ways to engage expanding markets in East Asia, which have different accounting principles, legal structures, and corporate reporting standards.

Who: Modern securities markets encompass a range of institutions and investors, including investment banks, money managers, insurance companies, mutual funds and pension funds. The types of securities offered or owned by such firms involve domestic and international public equity and debt markets, private valuations, private equity buyouts, real estate investment trusts and other non-traditional types of securities, including those unique to Asian markets.

When: Center curriculum to be implemented at the M.B.A. level in fall 2008.

Where: University of Oregon, Lundquist College of Business.

Gifts: Six consortium members each committed $50,000 or more per year for five years to provide start-up funds for the center.

Securities Analysis Center Consortium Members

Jim Rippey
Rippey is a 1953 graduate of the Lundquist College of Business at the University of Oregon. As the former president and director of Columbia Management Company and Columbia Trust Company, he co-founded Oregon’s first mutual fund in 1967 and one of the first money market mutual funds in the nation in 1974. Rippey is considered a pioneer in the mutual fund industry, having started Columbia Management Company at a time when there were only a handful of funds in existence. In 1997, Columbia Management Company and Columbia Trust Company became wholly owned subsidiaries of the Fleet Financial Group. At that time, Rippey stepped down as president, having grown Columbia Management Company into a firm with $22 billion under management.

Ron Sauer
Sauer graduated in 1980 from the Lundquist College of Business at the University of Oregon with a B.S. in finance. He is the founder, chairman and chief investment officer of Mazama Capital Management, the largest institutional money manager in small-capitalization growth equities in the United States. Starting in 1996 with three accounts and a $50 million portfolio, Sauer’s Portland-based firm now manages just under $8 billion in assets. For the small-cap growth investment style, this amount exceeds even such well-known names as Fidelity Funds. Earlier in his career, Sauer was president and director of research for Black & Company, where he spent fourteen years assisting growth managers with stock selection.

Eli Morgan
Morgan, who attended the University of Oregon’s College of Business until 1958, is chairman and CEO of 2030 Investors LLC, a Portland-based investment company. Morgan co-founded M Financial Group and M Life Insurance Company in 1978, a national marketing and reinsurance organization. Until he retired in 1996, he was responsible for helping grow M Financial into the nation’s leading financial products distribution company for corporations and high net worth individuals. He also founded Management Compensation Group Northwest and its predecessor, Resource Management Consultants.

Chuck Lillis
Lillis earned his doctorate from the Lundquist College of Business in 1972. He is the former CEO of MediaOne Corp. (now Comcast), and he and his wife Gwen are benefactors of the college’s Lillis Business Complex. Lillis is also co-founder and principal of LoneTree Partners, a private equity investing group, and a managing partner of Castle Pines Capital. He is currently on the board of directors of Washington Mutual Inc., SUPERVALU Inc., Williams Companies, Medco Health Solutions and SomaLogic Inc. Lillis has also served as president and CEO of US West Media Group, dean of the University of Colorado at Boulder Business School, a general manager for General Electric, and a professor at Washington State University.

Robert Jesenik
Jesenik graduated in 1980 from the Lundquist College of Business at the University of Oregon with a B.S. in accounting. He then received his M.B.A. from the University of Portland. Jesenik is CEO and co-founder of Aequitas Capital Management, a Portland-based alternative investment firm specializing in private equity and commercial finance products for the healthcare, energy and middle market sectors. Since the company’s inception in 1993, Jesenik has provided leadership in structuring and investing the majority of the firm's $1.5 billion in financial transactions. Jesenik's background includes commercial lending at U.S. Bancorp, operations experience as a vice president of finance/CFO for technology and distribution firms, and participating on the boards for Aequitas portfolio companies.

Eric Sorensen
Sorensen completed his doctorate in finance in 1977 at the University of Oregon’s Lundquist College of Business. He is president and CEO of PanAgora Asset Management in Boston, Massachusetts, a firm with more than $16 billion in assets under management. Prior to joining PanAgora, Sorensen was chief investment officer of structured equity and director of quantitative research at Putnam Investments. He was also global head of quantitative research at Salomon Brothers (now Citigroup). From 1974 to 1986, Sorensen was a professor of finance and department head at the University of Arizona, where he published his research in more than 35 outlets and served on the editorial board of several academic journals.

Contact: Wendy Mitchell, interim managing director, Securities Analysis Center, UO Lundquist College of Business, 541-346-3319, wendym@uoregon.edu

###