Managing Director And Founding Partner
-Siguler Guff & Company
Drew Guff is Managing Director and founding principal of Siguler Guff & Company. Siguler Guff & Company is a private equity firm managing over USD12 billion in domestic and international private equity funds on behalf of corporate and government pension plans, university endowments, family trusts, sovereign wealth funds and other financial institutions. The firm’s investment funds target several specialized areas, such as US distressed assets, the large emerging markets of the BRICs economies (Brazil, Russia, India and China), small US buyouts and healthcare investments. In 2005, Siguler Guff launched its first BRICs fund of funds dedicated to investing in and together with private equity firms in the BRICs markets. With over USD3 billion of capital dedicated to the BRICs, Siguler Guff is one of the largest Private Equity firms backing local managers in the emerging markets.
In 1995, Drew Guff and George Siguler, who also served on the GPCA Board, bought out the private equity arm of PaineWebber to form Siguler Guff & Co, known as a pioneer in investing long term capital in Russia. Mr. Guff launched one of the first private equity funds in Russia, Russia Partners, in 1994. Russia Partners today manages approximately US$1.3 billion in private equity investments in Russia and the other countries of the former Soviet Union. Since inception, Siguler Guff’s Russia Partners funds have made many successful long term investments in private Russian companies operating in industries such as pulp and paper, banking, software development, cement, oil and gas and TV and radio media companies. Notable successful investments include the founding of MTV Russia, EPAM Systems (IPO on New York Stock Exchange, 2012) and the construction of Russia’s first Tier III certified data center, DataSpace Partners LLC. Russia Partners has also launched a special fund focused on technology and innovation investing, Russia Partners Technology Fund.
Drew Guff is a member on the Executive Board of the US-Russia Business Council. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and was a recipient of the Woodrow Wilson Award for corporate citizenship in 2011 for contributions to the advancement of US – Russia relations. Mr. Guff earned an AB in Economics from Harvard University in 1983 and was a student at Leningrad State University in 1981.