Barrilero Fund for Search Funds and Entrepreneurial Acquisitions

The Barrilero Fund for Search Funds and Entrepreneurial Acquisitions, led by Professor Jan Simon, aims to strengthen research, dissemination, and training in the field of search funds through the IESE International Search Fund Center.

This fund will enable IESE to expand its global studies with new regional and sectoral analyses, promote the publication of specialized content on legal and tax issues, strengthen executive training and talent development in search funds, and enhance the sector’s main international events.

Objetives.

Strengthen international research on search funds

• Expand and deepen IESE’s global reports, incorporating regional studies in Latin America, Asia, Europe and the Middle East, as well as analyses by investor type to better understand their motivations, investment patterns and profile evolution.
• Explore new formats within the field of entrepreneurial acquisitions, including management buy-ins (MBIs), management buy-outs (MBOs), emerging and hybrid models of entrepreneurial acquisitions and other formats relevant in the international context.
• Generate studies, databases and longitudinal analyses that allow the evolution of the model to be tracked.
• Publish white papers, technical notes and applied case studies of international reference.

Multiply dissemination and applied knowledge

• Create specialized content on the legal, tax and M&A aspects of search funds.
• Organize dissemination activities such as webinars, podcasts and sector publications.
• Promote a greater joint presence in media specializing in private equity and entrepreneurship.

Expand training and talent development in Search Funds

• Launch new executive programs and activities aimed at alumni and young searchers.
• Integrate Barrilero’s expertise in critical areas of the model.

Promote global events that lead the search fund industry

• Expand the International Search Fund Conference, the most influential global gathering in the sector, to strategic markets in Latin America and Asia. This conference is organized jointly by IESE and the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Academic director.

Jan Simon is Professor of the Practice of Management in the Entrepreneurship Department and the Academic Director of its International Search Fund Center. He holds an LL.B. and LL.M. from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, an MBA from IESE Business School, University of Navarra, earned his Ph.D. in Finance from the University of Essex, holds the ICD.D Designation for corporate directors from the Rotman School of Management, earned his AMP at Harvard Business School, and read his MSt. in Practical Ethics at the University of Oxford.

Professor Simon worked over two decades in the investment industry. He co-headed the Emerging Markets Trading Desk at Salomon Brothers, set up the Continental Sales-Trading Desk at Goldman Sachs and was a member of Merrill Lynch’s Hedge Fund Advisory Group. He has been a Special Advisor to Pacific Lake Partners and is the Managing Partner of Vonzeo Capital, a global institutional investor in search funds.

His expertise is in the areas of investment strategies, mergers and acquisitions and entrepreneurial acquisitions. He has managed money in equities, fixed income, search funds and advised hedge funds in a variety of strategies. His research has been published in academic journals such as the Journal of Network Theory in Finance and the British Journal of Management, and is the author of Search Funds and Entrepreneurial Acquisitions, The Roadmap for Buying a Business and Leading it to the Next Level.

He served the 1st Battalion of Parachutists and Commandos -Special Operations Regiment-, as well as NATO’s Special Intervention Forces -ACE Mobile Force. He holds both the green and red beret.