Team - Gulf Equity

The Gulf Equity Team

Gulf Equity’s management team has a combined 50 years of experience in Mergers & Acquisitions.

The team’s diverse backgrounds as financial and operations executives, and international entrepreneurs provide unique insights into both the strategic and operating issues that are omnipresent in the mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures universe.

Stephen Picciano - Founder & CEO
(E) spicciano@gulfequity.net

Mr. Picciano is the founder and CEO of Gulf Equity. Previously, Mr. Picciano served as Founding Partner & Executive Managing Director of The Saudi International Investment Corporation, with offices in Dubai, Cairo and Beverly Hills. Prior to Pi Capital, he served as CFO and Portfolio Manager of Pi Capital in Beverly Hills. During this period, Mr. Picciano lived and worked in the MENA / GCC region, and this exposure was the catalyst for the formation of Gulf Equity.

He is a board member and investor of LinoWave, a cutting-edge 4th Generation Telco company that seamlessly combines voice, video and data, that is expected to replace GSM standards with greatly improved quality and reliability. Mr. Picciano attended Fordham University in New York and executive education at The Wharton School. He has held NASD Series 7, 63 and 65 licenses, and resides in the Los Angeles area.

Vijay Alim - Executive Managing Director
(E) valim@gulfequity.net

Mr. Alim brings 40+ years of business experience to Gulf Equity. Recently, Mr. Alim formed the India Century Housing Fund. Prior to the formation of the India Century Housing Fund, Vijay was the Founder and President of Central Technologies Inc, an accounting software product company.

He was responsible for strategic marketing and sales, overall corporate vision and acquisitions. The company was awarded the prestigious Blue Chip Award by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for excellence in Southern California under his direction. Vijay has been actively raising equity capital for emerging companies both public and private for over ten years. He has advised several of the portfolio companies on marketing and strategic issues, including work outs for troubled companies. In addition, he is a Managing Partner of Sylvan Partners LP, a real estate investment company and Flower Partners, invested primarily in residential multi-family units in California.

During the past year, Vijay has also been advising both U.S. and India-based companies on business process and software outsourcing strategies. Vijay held executive positions at Security Pacific Bank from 1976-1982 (subsequently acquired by Bank of America), where he was responsible for electronic banking activities and the management of a large network of ATMs. He was primarily responsible for acquiring technology companies for the Bank to augment their software development efforts. Prior to this, from 1970-1976, he worked for TRW in Los Angeles as a Product Manager for Banking Systems overseeing marketing and development activities. He also briefly worked for Young and Rubicam in New York in Media Planning. Vijay holds a Bachelors degree in Electrical Engineering from BITS in India and a Masters in Computer Sciences from University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Vijay resides in the Los Angeles area and makes frequent trips to India.

Jasmine Breitbach - Managing Director, M&A
(E) jbreitbach@gulfequity.net

Ms. Breitbach has cultivated the following strengths over the span of her 15 year business career to date: business valuations and appraisals, financial analysis, corporate governance and risk management. She has conducted in-depth analyses of a wide variety of companies ranging from small private companies to large public companies covering many industries, primarily focusing on determining corporate valuation and litigious risk exposure for Directors and Officers.

She served as the Enterprise Risk Manager for Westfield LLC. Working with senior executives, she effected operational improvements throughout nearly all corporate departments and oversaw system-wide procedures for auditing income allocation. Previous to Westfield, she specialized in Directors and Officers litigation and insurance coverage as a broker and senior underwriter. She established national underwriting guidelines, provided training on valuation techniques and oversaw construction of financial models to support financial analysis, including cash flow forecasts.

Jasmine is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) Charterholder and a graduate of DePaul University where she obtained her MBA with a concentration in operations management. She received her Bachelor's Degree in Finance with a minor in Economics from Northern Illinois University, and resides in the Los Angeles area.

Amol Rathi - Founder, Director of Business Development
(E) arathi@gulfequity.net

Mr. Rathi is Vice President of Gulf Equity. Amol has vast experience in the areas of financial research, business management and consultancy. Previously, Amol was an Investment Consultant for Motilal Oswal Securities Ltd.

He was one of the few members who started Commodity desk in Pune region. Over the last couple of years, Amol has been involved in fund raising and growth consulting for private companies.

Amol has expertise in deal sourcing, analysis and valuation in the area of M&A advisory. He is a Science graduate and holds an MBA (Finance) degree from University of Pune. Mr. Rathi resides in Pune, India, and manages Gulf Equity’s office there.

Luis Carmona - Director of Business Development
(E) lcarmona@gulfequity.net

Prior to joining Gulf Equity, Mr. Carmona worked for Champion Real Estate Company. Champion has developed, renovated or repositioned over $700 million in retail, office, multi-family and mixed-use. During this period Mr. Carmona identified, underwrote and negotiated apartment acquisitions.

Prior to this Mr. Carmona worked for Cal RE Solutions and was involved in over 400 distressed real estate transactions involving: loan modifications, short sales and REO management and sales. Prior to Cal RE Solutions, Mr. Carmona worked for Titanium Solutions, a third party asset manager and consultant for regional and national mortgage lenders. Mr. Carmona's role at Titanium was to provide loss mitigation consultation for San Diego, Los Angeles and Ventura Counties.

Prior to Titanium, Mr. Carmona served as a paralegal with Brinkman Portillo PC, a national business bankruptcy and litigation law firm. Mr. Carmona is fluent in Spanish and English. Mr. Carmona holds a California Real Estate Broker's License (DRE Lic. # 01807958) and is a graduate of San Diego State University with a BA in Business Administration with an emphasis on Financial Services.