Barry Abramson, Top Utility Industry Securities Analyst, Returns to Investment Banking

Joins Saber Partners, LLC as Senior Advisor for the Utility and Power Sectors

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Saber Partners, LLC, a leading Wall Street financial advisory boutique, today announced that Barry M. Abramson has joined the firm as a Senior Advisor.

Abramson has 35 years of experience in producing research and investment strategies on the electric, gas and water utilities. He will provide research and counsel Saber’s corporate clients and regulators as they consider financings, mergers and acquisitions, dividend policy and other strategic steps. At Saber, Abramson joins Hyman Schoenblum, former Vice President and Treasurer of Consolidated Edison, and Michael Noel, former Executive Vice President of Edison International, as Senior Advisors for the utility and power sectors. Alan S. Blinder, former Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve, chairs Saber Partners’ six-member Advisory Board.

“I have known Joseph Fichera (Saber Partners’ chief executive officer) for more than 20 years and have long admired his innovative thinking and rigorous professionalism throughout all the changes in investment banking,” Abramson said. “He’s assembled a team that is testament to an ability to attract top professionals committed to excellence and ethics. I am excited to have this opportunity to work with him and the rest of the Saber team.”

Saber Partners has advised numerous utilities and regulatory commissions since its formation in 2000. In June 2016, for example, the firm completed its year-long assignment as financial advisor to the Florida Public Service Commission on the initial public offering of a $1.294 billion bond issuance by a subsidiary of Duke Energy Florida (NYSE: DUK). The Florida PSC approved the first-of-its-kind nuclear asset-recovery bond in a precedent-setting offering. The offering enabled Duke Energy to recover costs related to the early retirement of its Crystal River III nuclear power plant with over $600 million in savings to ratepayers. In 2001, just a year after Saber’s formation, the firm along with The Blackstone Group were tapped to serve as chief financial advisors to California Governor Gray Davis to address the state’s energy crisis.

“Barry brings a perfect complementary set of skills to our advisory team,” said Fichera. “His deep knowledge of the utility industry will be invaluable to utilities and regulators. Our clients are grappling with ways to both cost-effectively modernize essential infrastructure and limit the impact on consumer monthly bills.”

Following a 25-year career on Wall Street as a securities analyst for firms such as Merrill Lynch, Prudential Securities, PaineWebber and UBS Securities, Abramson went into money management as a buy-side analyst and later as a portfolio manager. Institutional Investor consistently ranked Abramson among the top analysts following the utility industry. His research in the early ‘90s presciently noted that deregulation and retail customer choice would inevitably take hold.

After leaving Wall Street, Abramson was a senior analyst at Gabelli Funds, where he helped manage some $1 billion in investor assets. He later worked in a similar role for the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund, Norges Bank Investment Management, where he oversaw a multi-billion dollar fund that invested in North American utilities and pipeline operators.

Abramson is widely known among institutional investors and utility industry executives as the creator of the annual Electric Utilities Power Book, which he published for Prudential Securities, PaineWebber and UBS Securities from 1988 through 2001. Abramson is a Chartered Financial Analyst and received a B.A. in economics from Yale University.

In his career covering utilities and pipelines as a securities analyst, Abramson analyzed numerous utility and pipeline mergers, spin-offs, and asset acquisitions and divestitures – providing critical independent evaluations to utility industry executives on their asset deployment and investment strategies.

“The electric utility and power industry continues to deal with seismic shifts,” said Abramson. "The competitive power markets continue to change due to an acceleration in the deployment of utility-scale renewable energy, coupled with an ongoing oversupply of low-cost natural gas. Utilities and regulators are dealing with unplanned shocks of early retirements of large coal-fired power plants and nuclear generation, while retrofitting other facilities to comply with tough new environmental regulations.”

Abramson said these challenges are being exacerbated by the need for electric utilities to incorporate smart-grid technologies to boost reliability, efficiency, and conserve energy. He also cited accelerating consolidation among gas utilities as a factor adding to the market uncertainty and an area where Saber increasingly will offer its expertise.

About Saber Partners, LLC

Based in New York City and established in 2000, Saber Partners is a full-service financial advisory firm specializing in the utility and power industry, and corporate and municipal finance. Its senior-level team of financial experts and economists includes former Wall Street executives, utility finance executives and state public service commissioners. Alan Blinder, former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve, is chairman of Saber Partners’ Advisory Board. The firm has a range of capabilities, including innovative financings, expert rate-case and securities testimony, financial modeling, economic consulting and investor relations.

www.saberpartners.com

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Saber Partners, LLC
Joseph S. Fichera, 212-461-2370
Chief Executive Officer

Source: Saber Partners, LLC

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