As part of their unique services and expertise, the NIR Group and Corey Ribotsky offer The NIR Credit Partners team.  Established in 2005 as an alternative asset manager, the NIR Credit Partners includes professionals with a large range of skill sets.  Comprised of portfolio management, investment banking, capital markets distribution, structuring, modeling and systems development activities, the NIR Credit Partners are ready to participate in rebuilding structured finance.

Today, this team, under managing partners Joe Parish and Scott Shannon, provide the industry with analysis related to mortgage loans and mortgage-backed securities.

The NIR Group, with managing partner and head portfolio manager Corey Ribotsky, is now offering the Haverstock Fund.  This fund offers mid market companies the liquidity they need.  There are many benefits to the issuer with this fund.

The Haverstock Fund offers the issuer control over the amount and timing of each Option while also granting total flexibility to the issuer.  This fund offers the issuer access to capital without dilation and ensures no overhang.  The shares will be issued as the company determines and desires, ensuring that there is no uncertainty with dilution.  The Haverstock Fund eliminates financing uncertainty with a firm commitment and offers lower cost funding mechanisms than are available with other alternative financing options.

These are a few of the advantages that the Haverstock Fund will offer to the NIR Group.  Corey Ribotsky and The NIR Group are constantly adapting to the changing times, and seeking fund options that will work for companies of all sorts.

The Heather on Earth Foundation sees as its goal to fund music programs at children’s hospitals, including full or part-time music therapists to help children and their families cope with the stress and discomfort of serious illness.

Included among the services the Heather on Earth therapists offer are the amazing services of the Songs of Love Foundation. Songs of Love creates individual portraits of children, highlighting that child’s very own spirit. Heather on Earth strives to make sure every child leaves the hospital with a Song of Love.

Among the children’s hospitals whose music therapy programs are funded by Heather on Earth are Maria Fareri Children’s Hospital in Westchester, New York; Schneider Children’s Hospital in New Hyde Park, New York; and Winthrop University Hospital in Mineola, New York.

Corey Ribotsky of the NIR Group, Roslyn, New York, is proud to be a partner in this worthwhile endeavor.

The NIR Group, Corey Ribotsky managing partner, is involved in many organizations and foundations as supporters. Among these varied groups is a unique and special organization known as the Heather on Earth Music Foundation.

The Foundation was named in memory of Heather Samone Fessler, who left this world on September 28, 1985. The mission of Heather on Earth is to bring the gift and beauty of music to children and their families who are struggling with serious illness, in order to lift spirits, inspire, relax, distract and calm raw nerves.

It is well known that listening to music can strengthen the immune system, alleviate pain, decrease anxiety, and help young patients comply and participate in their own care. Heather on Earth hopes to bring a little beauty and hope to what might otherwise be a frightening and distressing experience.

Hedge funds have certainly been in the news a lot lately. Corey Ribotsky’s investment firm, the NIR Group, based in Roslyn, New York, is one of the top hedge fund investors in the United States, so perhaps it would be wise to discuss a bit what exactly hedge funds are.

Let’s start with a bit of history to get perspective and context. Surprisingly it was not an investor in the usual sense that is credited with creating the first hedge fund. In 1949 Alfred W. Jones, a writer, sociologist and financial journalist made some observations that gave him an idea which has since changed the way we invest today.

Jones surmised that the price fluctuations of individual assets could be separated into two distinct components; one part due to the activity of the overall market, and the other part due to the performance of the investment itself. He therefore devised a way to cancel out the effect of the overall market performance. Jones achieved this by creating a balanced portfolio. Some of the assets he purchased he believed would outperform the general market, while others he sold short, expecting these to perform weaker than the overall market.

In this way Jones would have an investment in which market fluctuations in the price of the investments would be neutralized. If the overall market rose, the loss on shorted assets would be evened out by the extra gain on the purchased assets. The same effect would apply if the market as a whole fell in value. The term ‘hedge fund’ was used because the effect of this style of investing is to ‘hedge’ the part of the risk which is due to the general movements of the market. Like the expression “hedging your bets.”

After General Motors Corporation filed for bankruptcy the U.S. Government created a bailout plan that looked and felt remarkably like a PIPE transaction. Or as Corey Ribotsky puts it in his insightful opinion piece about the bailout, “If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it must be a duck.”

The heart of the bailout plan includes giving $30.1 billion in financing which take GM through the process of bankruptcy while the government takes a 60% stake. This stake includes $8.8 billion in debt and preferred stock in the new company that will be created. Ontario, Canada will also lend GM a huge sum, $9.5 billion and will receive in return $1.7 billion in debt and preferred stock in addition to 12% of the equity in the new company which will be a public entity. All the preferred stock will be registered with the SEC so that resale of the shares to the public can be carried out.

According to Corey Ribotsky these transactions look obviously like the PIPE transactions he has been involved in for over 10 years as an investment manager at the NIR Group in Roslyn, New York. Quack!

In response to being asked his opinion on the recent bailout plan of General Motors Corporation by the U.S. government, Corey Ribotsky of the NIR Group hedge fund firm offered the assessment that the bailout is actually

“a PIPE transaction funded by the largest, most accredited investor in the world, the United States of America.”

This view was published in June, 2009 on the internet business news magazine Reuters Hedgeworld, entitled “A Duck is Still a Duck-GM and the Greatest PIPE Deal of Our Time.”

In this opinion piece Ribotsky lays out his theory by first explaining what a PIPE transaction is, and then comparing the bailout plan’s particular requirements and features to convincingly show readers the striking similarity between the financing strategies.

According to Corey Ribotsky, the General Motors Corporation bailout bears an uncanny resemblance to a traditional PIPE transaction. To prove this point Ribotsky first explains what a PIPE transaction is.

A Private Investment in a Public Equity (PIPE) is a special transaction in which investors that are accredited purchase stock in a company for a price that has been predetermined in advance. The stock must be registered with the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) so that the stock can be resold sometime in the future. There can be additional aspects to the PIPE transaction as well, such as including a coupon rate if there is debt associated with the transaction or including a detached option or warrant package.

Ribotsky goes on to explain that even before the long predicted bankruptcy of G.M. the U.S. government had invested $19.4 billion in a structure which already had the look and feel of a typical PIPE deal. This move by the U.S. government gave important legitimacy to this particular type of investment structure and certainly validates it as a mainstream form of financing.

In a step which is designed to make raising capital easier, cheaper and faster for small to mid cap companies, the NIR Group and Corey Ribotsky have introduced the Haverstock Fund, LLC.

Among the many benefits to the issuer that can be expected are:

• • Speed: Capital can be acquired more quickly this way than with traditional financing methods.
  • Implementation Risk is Reduced: There is a considerable reduction in time to market when compared with the more traditional types of financing.
  • Timing: Immediately upon registering the Agreement with the SEC the company can begin selling equity to the investor.
  • No Selling Short: It will be agreed upon by the buyer and all its affiliates that no short selling or hedging will be engaged in any manner, directly or indirectly, of the securities of a partner company.
  • Net Long: The buyer will represent them on every secondary in which they will continue to maintain some equity stake.

Now small to mid cap companies have access to capital while maintaining control and flexibility over just about every aspect of the process. The Haverstock Fund LLC, is being offered to companies by the NIR Group of which Corey Ribotsky is a principal.

Among the many characteristics which benefit the issuer of the Haverstock Fund are:

•    Less Dilution: It is easier to raise more capital using fewer shares during a period when prices are strong.
•    No Overhang: The company itself decides when shares are issued, there is no question or hesitation due to dilution.
•    Commitment: No need to worry about financing since there is firm commitment; therefore the company can focus its resources on its business.
•   Reduced Cost: There is a lower cost funding mechanism than the traditional means of financing, so more of the company’s money can be used for growth and development.