Mr. Zentner began his finance career as an associate with The Chicago Corporation, where he worked on a variety of public and private corporate finance transactions, including debt offerings, equity offerings and M&A. In 1996, Mr. Zentner moved to New York and eventually became the managing director of the Strategic Equity Transactions Group at Deutsche Bank. His expertise included risk management and tax-advantaged equity related investment strategies for high net worth individuals.
In 2002, Mr. Zentner moved to Palm Beach, Florida, and developed his own independent investment, consulting and advisory firm, Avalon National Corporation. Avalon acted as a principal and provided financial consulting to a select group of clients from Canada that was seeking real estate and corporate investment opportunities in the United States. These investment advisory assignments included the asset management and eventual sale of a $40 million 432-unit multi-family rental community. Mr. Zentner further established himself as an angel investor to the venture capital community where he made several seed capital investments in new emerging technology companies and acted as a board advisor to a subset of these companies.
In 2009, Mr. Zentner began a co-investment relationship with Allerand, which has lasted until today. Together, Mr. Zentner and Allerand have co-invested in a variety of loan investments and in operating business in both passive and active capacities. These investments have been in industries including debt settlement, tax settlement, automobile financing and real estate development. In addition, Mr. Zentner manages Allerand Specialty Finance, which includes all Allerand’s investments in debt settlement services and related businesses. Under Mr. Zentner’s management, these assets have grown dramatically in value since Allerand’s first investment in the sector, in 2008.