Star Mountain Capital
Dennis Duerst, CFA had a 39-year career at 3M Company (NYSE: MMM), a multinational conglomerate corporation operating in the fields of industry, worker safety, health care, and consumer goods.
Mr. Duerst was most recently President at 3M Investment Management Corporation, the $40 billion investment manager for 3M’s global retirement plans. In the US, he launched initial investments in hedge funds and private credit and focused on absolute return and private market investing. Mr. Duerst managed an innovative asset allocation and investment approach which resulted in well-funded plans, improved risk adjusted returns and over $2 billion in value from outperformance versus benchmarks. He served as President since 2003 when he was promoted from Director of Financial Risk Management where he led 3M’s global capital markets and risk management activities.
Mr. Duerst is currently a member of the Investment Advisory Council for the $130 billion Minnesota State Board of Investments as well as a member of the Board of Directors and Chairs the Finance and Investment Committee for the $90 million St. Croix Valley Foundation. Mr. Duerst is also a member of the Advisory Board for the Nicholas Center for Corporate Finance and Investment Banking at the University of Wisconsin School of Business.
Mr. Duerst was an original member of the Board of Directors of the Committee on the Investment of Employee Benefit Assets (CIEBA) and recently served on its public policy task force. He has also served on the LP advisory committees for a number of private equity and private credit funds.
A sought-after speaker at conferences including Institutional Investor, MFA, Pension & Investments, aiCIO Magazine, Global ARC and CIEBA, Mr. Duerst has received industry recognition numerous times for innovation and thought leadership by organizations that include Institutional Investor and aiCIO.
Mr. Duerst received a BBA in Finance and Management from the University of Wisconsin – Madison and an MBA from the University of Minnesota and is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA).
As an aligned Senior Advisor, Mr. Duerst assists Star Mountain Capital with deal origination and investor relationships, industry and other strategic insights to help Star Mountain and its portfolio investments maximize value.
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Star Mountain Capital
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Star Mountain Capital ($1.5bn + AUM) has a differentiated business model and “Collaborative Ecosystem” including its three channel approach to investing into small and medium-sized businesses via Direct Investments, Strategic Primary Fund Investments and Secondary Fund Investments. Star Mountain invests: 1. As a strategic limited partner into other private equity and private credit fund managers focused on the lower-middle-market (including SBIC funds and as an anchor investor); 2. As a secondary investor providing liquidity to existing limited partner investors; and, 3. Directly into companies to help them grow (in the form of senior debt, mezzanine and/or equity investments). Star Mountain often partners with its portfolio of top performing fund managers to help "match" businesses with investment partners who are best suited to maximize value for business owners. Investing in the Growth Engine of America ® – Star Mountain is a specialized investor exclusively focused on providing capital to lower middle-market established small and medium-sized private U.S. businesses that have between $2 million and $20 million of EBITDA. Star Mountain’s data-driven approach, bringing large market expertise and resources to private equity and private credit investing is powered by its custom-built technology and its Collaborative Ecosystem ®. Star Mountain was recognized as one of the Best Places to Work by both Crain’s and Pensions & Investments. Crain’s two-part survey process consisted of evaluating each nominated company’s workplace policies, practices, philosophy, systems and demographics. The second part involved an employee survey to measure the employee experience. The combined scores determined the top companies and the final ranking. Detailed eligibility criteria can be found here: https://www.bestplacestoworknyc.com/eligibility-criteria P&I partners with a company called Best Companies Group on the survey that is behind the Best Places to Work program. P&I works with them to develop the parts of the questionnaires that are specific to money management. Beyond those questions, P&I’s survey partner develops and scores the surveys. P&I only sees anonymous responses to questions, identified only by the company name. If Best Companies determines that a firm scores above the threshold cutoff that they have set for a firm to be considered a Best Place to Work then P&I names them on their list. P&I uses the same cutoff for all firms but rank the firms against their peers by number of employees. P&I only ranks the top 5 firms per size category and then list the rest in alphabetical order. There is no fee to participate in the Best Places to Work in Money Management program. P&I’s partner, Best Companies Group, does offer some of the results of the surveys for sale to each participating company, but that has no influence on how a company is ranked or whether or not they are recognized as a best place to work. Detailed eligibility criteria can be found here: https://www.bestplacestoworkmm.com/eligibility-criteria