Management

John C. Leo

John C. Leo is the Chairman and President of Primary Capital LLC (PC); he is also the firm’s General Securities Principal, and Managing Director of Investment Banking.

The majority of Mr. Leo's time is spent on the origination and execution of investment banking transactions, which includes private and public offerings, as well as mergers and acquisitions. He also supervises the firm's proprietary trading operations and market making activities. John Leo acquired PC in July 2007. Prior to acquiring PC, Mr. Leo was the founder, Chairman and majority owner of American Union Securities, Inc. (AUS) which focused on investment banking, mergers and acquisitions in China. Mr. Leo sold his ownership in AUS in March 2007 to expand his focus beyond China.

Prior to starting AUS, Mr. Leo founded Venture Capital Partners LLC, a private merchant banking, securities trading, and consulting firm which provided business and financial advisory services to late-stage private companies and small to mid-sized public companies. These services included advising on the structure of equity and debt financing, financial modeling, valuation analysis, drafting business plans, establishing strategic relationships, providing introductions to institutional investors and research analysts, and assisting in the selection of board members.

From 1996 through 2001, Mr. Leo worked as a market maker trading Pink Sheet, Over-The-Counter Bulletin Board, and NASDAQ-listed securities as well as IPO’s. He was a registered securities principal and OTC trader with AM Capital and MH Meyerson. At these firms, Mr. Leo was responsible for executing orders for non-market makers as well as position trading for the firms’ proprietary accounts. While at MH Meyerson, between 1997 and 2001, Mr. Leo managed a profitable trading list of three hundred securities. Mr. Leo traded long and short positions, used technical analysis and hedging techniques, along with short-term charting trends to make investment decisions.

In addition to Mr. Leo's hands-on experience structuring financial transactions and trading securities, he also has expertise in managing compliance issues and corporate governance, having served as a board member of seven public companies as well as the positions of CFO and Corporate Secretary. Mr. Leo maintains the following FINRA registrations: Series 7, 24, 55, 63, 79, and 99.

John Tammaro

Chief Operations Officer

John Tammaro (“JT”) has more than fourteen years of trading, operational and back office experience in the securities industry. Prior to starting his employment with Primary Capital Mr. Tammaro handled all day to day operational and trading activities for American Union Securities, Inc., a full service investment banking firm headquarter in New York. Mr. Tammaro was responsible for all market making activities, posting all month - end journal entries, monitored market conditions and technical trading patterns to capture price movement through proprietary trading, and oversaw all correspondence with its clearing firm.

From 2005 through 2006 Mr. Tammaro was an Over-the-Counter market maker and support specialist with Pershing Trading Company LP, a division of the Bank of New York. Pershing Trading Company is a wholesale market maker in approximately 5,000 securities. While at Pershing Mr. Tammaro was responsible for executing both retail and institutional orders, averaging nearly 1000 transactions a day.

From 2004 through 2005 Mr. Tammaro employed with Crown Financial Group as a trader. Crown Financial Group was the successor firm to MH Meyerson & Company.

John Tammaro (“JT”) began his career in the securities business in 1996 as a securities trader with M.H. Meyerson & Company, a FINRA member firm. Meyerson & Company was a wholesale and proprietary trading firm which made markets in over 4,000 securities. Mr. Tammaro was responsible for executing retail and institutional orders, confirmation reports to sales traders and retail brokers, and proprietary trading, which included OTC Bulletin Board and Pink Sheet securities. Mr. Tammaro is a graduate of Lacrosse University and has the following FINRA registrations: series 7, 24, 55, 63, 79, and 99.

Arthur J. Magee, CFA

Director, Investment Banking

Prior to joining Primary Capital, Mr. Magee spent approximately 15 years in the investment banking groups of boutique firms and major global banks. Throughout his career he has focused primarily on financing emerging growth companies and has been directly involved in more than 30 IPOs, resulting in gross proceeds of more than $650 million. In addition to traditional IPOs, he has worked on a variety of other transactions, including creating, financing and advising specified purpose acquisition companies (“SPACs”), private placements, merger and acquisitions and financial restructurings. His experience also includes working in the investment banking divisions at two of the worlds’ leading banks, The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi and BNP Paribas. While at these banks Mr. Magee worked on a number of cross border merger and acquisition transactions, with a specific focus on their Asian and European clients.

Mr. Magee has earned the designation of Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) and maintains the Series 7 FINRA registration. He received an MBA from the University at Buffalo and a B.S. from Albright College.

Yura Barabash

Director, Investment Banking

Mr. Yura Barabash has extensive investment banking experience across multiple industries domestically and internationally.  Since 2002 Mr. Barabash has been involved in multiple equity & debt financings and M&A transactions for public and private companies in the US, China, Brazil, EU and Russia & CIS.  

Prior to joining Primary Capital in 2011, Mr. Barabash was an investment banker at Rodman & Renshaw, Merriman Capital and Merrill Lynch.  He began his career as a Corporate Debt Associate with Bank of America after serving as a Consultant with World Economic Forum during its 2002 Annual Meeting in New York. Mr. Barabash received his Master’s of International Finance (MIA) from Columbia University in New York and is fluent in Russian.

Chris Bickel

President

Chris Bickel is the President of Primary Capital. He focuses on due diligence and business development in China. From 2005 through October of 2009 Mr. Bickel provided a full range of investment banking, due diligence and business advisory services to private China based companies interested in listing in the US markets, as well advisory services to US based investment banking firms interested in identifying investment banking clients in China. These services were provided under Rosewood Capital Group, LLC, a company affiliated with Mr. Bickel. Mr. Bickel was instrumental in originating and financing the following transactions: Fushi Copperweld, listed FSIN on NASDAQ, Dalian Rino, listed RINO on NASDAQ, Wuhan General, listed WUHN on NASDAQ and Sinogas, listed SGAS on the OTC BB.

From 2001 through 2004 Mr. Bickel was the Chairman and CEO of Sino UJE Ltd., a Hong Kong based company which is a distributor of medical and industrial instrumentation and technology products. The company distributes products from the US, Japan and Europe into China through its headquarters in Hong Kong and representative Chinese offices in Guangzhou and Shanghai. From 1997 to 2001 Chris Bickel was the President of eV Products, which is now eV Microelectronics, a division of Endicott Interconnect Technologies. eV develops and manufactures solid state X-ray detectors and Gamma ray detectors which have industrial, medical, laboratory and homeland security applications. From 1983 to 1996 Mr. Bickel was based in Hong Kong and was employed by Spectris. He was responsible for the management of offices in Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Australia and the PRC, for the distribution of sensors, lasers, radioisotopes and control instrumentation.

Chris Bickel has over 25 years of international business experience with management positions in both public and private companies encompassing a broad range of business sectors. Chris Bickel holds the following FINRA registrations: series 7, 24, 63, and 79.

Brian Zucker

Director

Brian Zucker serves as a Director of Primary Capital. He is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, as well as a member of the New York and New Jersey State Society of CPA’s. He has over twenty years of experience as a CPA, which includes Senior Consultant positions at both Price Waterhouse and Deloitte Haskins and Sells. Mr. Zucker currently manages his accounting practice which provides a broad range of services to hedge funds, broker dealers and high net worth individuals.

He has previously served as the President and Chairman of Atlantis Business Development Corp., and as a Managing Director of American Frontier Financial Corp., which was a full service investment banking and brokerage firm. As a member of their investment banking committee he was responsible for evaluating investment opportunities for the firm. Mr. Zucker holds a Bachelor’s degree in accounting from Pace University in New York, and has the following FINRA registrations: series 7, 24, 27, and 63.