Seabury Group - Senior Management
John E. Luth
Chairman, President & CEO
John Luth is the founding partner and chief executive of the Seabury Group. He is currently active in advising major airlines and aerospace companies on strategy, equity and debt capital raises, new aircraft purchase agreements, M&A advisory assignments restructuring engagements, and corporate-wide operational efficiency strategies.
Mr. Luth most recently led highly successful capital raises for Air Canada ($1.0 billion ) and US Airways Group Inc. ($1.1 billion) in the midst of a global credit crisis, and led successful M&A assignments for Frontier Airlines (2009) and Midwest Airlines (2009). He led the Northwest Airlines’ financial restructuring (2005-2007), including securing $750 million of new equity, $1.2 billion of exit debt financing and restructuring of over $10 billion of debt and lease obligations.
David Turnbull
Chairman of Seabury Asia
David Turnbull joined Seabury Aviation & Aerospace as Chairman of Seabury Asia in November 2008. Mr. Turnbull has been Chairman of Pacific Basin Shipping Limited since January 2008 and became Executive Chairman in July 2008. He was with the Swire Group for 30 years, where he was the immediate past Chairman of Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd., Swire Pacific Ltd. and Hong Kong Aircraft Engineering Company Ltd.
Michael B. Cox
Senior Managing Director, Global Head of Restructuring Advisory
Mike Cox joined the Seabury Group as a partner in April 1998. He has over 25 years of airline and aviation-related experience. At Seabury, Mr. Cox has advised numerous airline clients on a variety of projects, including airline treasury, corporate finance, and airline restructuring. Recent engagements have included leading the Seabury team in successfully restructuring the aircraft debt/lease restructuring efforts for the successful reorganization efforts at US Airways, Air Canada and Northwest Airlines. Mr. Cox led the successful out-of-court restructuring of South African Airways resulting in a profitable fiscal year ending March 31, 2008 after losing over 1 billion ZAR the year before. Mr. Cox also advised Frontier Airlines in its Chapter 11 reorganization efforts.
Marty R. Kuehne
Chief Administrative Officer & Senior Managing Director, Seabury Group; Managing Director, Human Capital
Marty R. Kuehne joined Seabury Group in 2008 as Managing Director, Human Capital and became the Chief Administrative Officer for Seabury Group in 2009. Mr. Kuehne has extensive expertise in maximizing the potential of people, business processes and Human Resource programs to produce superior business results. With over 25 years of experience in a variety of human capital fields.
John R. Kuehne
Chief Financial Officer, Seabury Group & Managing Director
John R. Kuehne joined Seabury group as a Managing Principal, specializing in Workforce Analytics in 2008 and added the additional duties of CFO for the Seabury group in 2009. Mr. Kuehne’s analytical background provides meaningful financial metrics that identify the key leverage points necessary to improve the time and precision of the business decision making process. He has extensive expertise in understanding corporate labor cost and business structures.
Christopher J. Chaput
Managing Director and Head of Structured Finance
Chris Chaput heads the firm's Structured Finance Group, which focuses on secured financings and off-balance sheet transactions (including leveraged leasing) involving aircraft, rail cars, real estate, ships and other assets. Most recently, Mr. Chaput was a senior member of the exclusive advisory team that represented US Airways in its successful merger with America West Airlines.
Lorie R. Beers
Managing Director, Investment Banking & Financial Restructuring
Lorie R. Beers joined Seabury Group in October 2009 as Managing Director, Investment Banking and Restructuring, with responsibility for Seabury’s restructuring practices for all industry segments outside of the aviation and aerospace sectors. A recognized financial industry leader, Ms. Beers has more than 20 years of corporate restructuring and insolvency experience representing companies on distressed M&A transactions, refinancing, recapitalizations, and debt renegotiations.
Bijoy Mechery
Managing Director, Head of Solutions
Bijoy Mechery joined the Seabury Group in January 2002 as a Managing Director as well as Chief Executive Officer of Seabury’s IT software consulting and development firm, Seabury Solutions LLC. Seabury Solutions, which is now headquartered in Bangalore, India, provides comprehensive IT consulting services to Seabury’s aviation clients and private equity firms. Solutions also has developed what Seabury believes to be the most robust and comprehensive airlines enterprise assessment software (Seabury’s Airline Performance Analysis System, or “APAS”) for Delta Air Lines (2005-2006).
Margaret L. Chan
Managing Director and Head of Specialists Funds
Margaret Chan joined the Seabury Group in December 2001 as head of the Los Angeles office with more than 20 years of experience in diverse public and private transactions. As a Managing Director of Merrill Lynch, and co-founder of Cargill/O'Brien Partners, Ms. Chan structured a wide range of transactions involving innovative financing strategies.Her knowledge in both debt and equity and investor appetite uniquely enables her to design least obvious solutions to benefit her clients.
David Kanter
Managing Director
David Kanter joined Seabury in 2009 as Managing Director, Investment Banking, with more than 20 years of investment banking experience in debt and equity financing, M&A and restructuring advisory. Mr. Kanter most recently was Managing Director, Leveraged Finance for RBS Global Banking & Markets, after it acquired ABN AMRO Incorporated. He had been Managing Director and Head of Leveraged Finance and High Yield, North America for ABN AMRO.
Dr. Christopher J. Smith
Senior Advisor
Dr. Christopher Smith joined Seabury Group in July 2008 and has more than 35 years of experience in the air transport industry. He heads the firm’s Corporate Advisory office in London, which serves the financial community by providing due diligence and support for transactions in the airline, airport, and aviation-related business sectors, including ground handling. He also is responsible for Seabury’s airports advisory practice.
John Nozell
Senior Advisor
John Nozell joined Seabury Group as Managing Director, Investment Banking, with responsibility for the firm’s practice in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. He has extensive experience in commercial and investment banking, leasing and restructuring. Mr. Nozell began his career in finance with The Chase Manhattan Corporation (now JP Morgan Chase & Co.) in New York. He held various positions during the 18 years he was with the company, including Managing Director, Global Investment Banking.
