It has been confirmed today that Howard Millar, who was chief executive officer of Stellwagen Capital (StellCap) and chief operating officer of the Stellwagen Group, has resigned from the company. He will be replaced as CEO of StellCap by Scott Corman, with David Butler taking over the role of Group COO from October 1, 2017.
“We are extremely excited to assign Scott new leadership responsibilities and add David to the team at a time when the aviation sector’s demand for innovative financing solutions continues to increase alongside institutional investors’ appetite for alternative investments that offer stable yield and low correlation to traditional asset classes,” said the Group’s Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Douglas Brennan. “Scott’s structured finance expertise and David’s innovative management practices position us to seize these sizable opportunities and solidify our strong position in the marketplace. They will also play key roles in accelerating our integration of the aviation advisory and asset management business we acquired from ECN Capital.”
Prior to joining the Group as part of the ECN Capital transaction, Corman served as an executive managing director leading the firm’s expansion into structured finance services in both the rail and aircraft markets. He previously spent 13 years as head of the transportation asset finance team at Credit Suisse in New York.
A native of Ireland, Butler previously spent more than a decade at Digicel Group, which provides affordable and innovative mobile services, enterprise solutions and cloud computing. He most recently served as chief executive officer of the firm’s Jamaica, Panama and Fiji businesses. Brennan views Butler’s appointment as a “invaluable growth catalyst.”
The group confirmed Millar’s departure but third-party sources have also indicated that Edward Hanson, chief risk officer of Seraph Aviation Management and Edward Coughlan, chief commercial officer of Seraph Aviation Management, have also left Stellwagen Group at the same time and are now on gardening leave.