Ravinia Capital, a boutique investment bank focused on middle-market mergers and acquisitions, distressed situations and restructuring, added Rob Schwartz as managing director. Schwartz, based in Cleveland, brings more than 15 years of private equity experience and a national origination network built across the middle-market deal community.
Schwartz began his career as a practicing attorney before joining Resilience Capital Partners, a middle market private equity firm focused on special situations. Over 15 years, he played a central role in building Resilience into a leading special situations fund in the middle market, ultimately serving as managing director of business development, where he was responsible for acquisition originations nationwide. In that role, he developed and maintained relationships across the full spectrum of deal sources, including investment bankers, attorneys, lenders and business brokers.
“Rob has spent 15 years evaluating deals from the buy side,” Tom Goldblatt, managing partner of Ravinia Capital, said. “He knows what serious acquirers want to see, how they think about risk and where processes tend to break down. That perspective is directly useful to our clients. When you combine it with the relationships he has built across the country, this is exactly the kind of addition that makes us better for everyone we work with.”
Schwartz’s legal background adds a further dimension to his deal experience. He began his career in law practice and has applied that foundation throughout his private equity career, giving him a working understanding of deal structure, documentation and negotiation that benefits clients across both M&A and restructuring engagements. He is a longstanding member of the Turnaround Management Association, the American Bankruptcy Institute and the Association for Corporate Growth. Schwartz holds a B.A. from Emory University and a J.D. from Cleveland-Marshall College of Law.
“I’ve worked in the middle market my entire career, and I have enormous respect for what Ravinia has built,” Schwartz said. “Tom and the team have a reputation for running serious, high-quality processes and delivering results for clients in situations that aren’t always straightforward. I wanted to be part of that. I’m bringing a buy-side perspective and a network I’ve spent 15 years building, and I’m looking forward to putting both to work.”
