Meridian Investments announced the formation of Meridian Asset Finance to be led by Rob Martorano, former Americas head of Deutsche Bank Securities’ Asset Finance and Leasing Group.

Martorano, a corporate finance professional for more than 25 years, has structured and arranged several billion dollars of domestic and international transactions in energy (including renewable), medical, transportation, food, manufacturing, technology infrastructure and real estate industries. Prior to joining Deutsche Bank, he was a manager at Ernst & Young.

Joining Martorano at Meridian Asset Finance are former Deutsche Bank colleagues, John Ulrich and Gennaro D’Agostino.

Ulrich brings 14 years of experience with Deutsche Bank Securities’ Asset Finance and Leasing Group, where he arranged and advised on a variety of both domestic and cross-border corporate lease structures. Clients have ranged from multinational industrials, to high technology firms, to renewable energy developers. Most recently he advised on restructuring and monetizing LILO/SILO cross border lease structures. He previously worked with the real estate group of the Long Term Credit Bank of Japan.

D’Agostino was responsible for structured and equity related investments and advisory services made and offered by Deutsche Bank Securities’ Asset Finance and Leasing Group in the Americas, with a particular focus on alternative energy. He joined Deutsche Bank in 1997 and has financed or invested over $4 billion across a wide variety of assets, including power and renewable energy projects. Previously, he worked in asset and private wealth management with over $30 billion in assets under management for pension and offshore investment funds.

John Boc, Meridian’s co-Founder, chairman and CEO, said: “We are very pleased to attract this extremely experienced, talented and respected investment banking team. They were highly sought after by a number of investment banks and we feel very fortunate they have chosen to join the Meridian boutique platform of companies to help us manage and grow our Wall Street and corporate institutional relationships.”

In addition to being CEO of Meridian Asset Finance, Martorano will serve on the Executive Management Committee for all the Meridian Companies, according to Jack Casey, Meridian co-Founder, vice chairman and COO. Martorano’s team will work with Jerry McDermott, president of Meridian Investments Broker-Dealer in Washington, DC on tax credit equity public-private institutional partnerships, and with Chris Moakley, CEO of Meridian Clean Fuels based in Minneapolis, MN.

Martorano said: “We were flattered and humbled by the many meaningful offers made to us by former clients and Wall Street member firms. We have prior experience with Meridian’s institutional tax credit client base and we feel our corporate finance and leasing experience will help Meridian increase their product offerings to their Fortune 500 institutional client base.”