Background: Mr. Kerester is a Partner at Wood Warren & Co., which is a boutique investment bank focused on the food, beverage and agriculture industries. Mr. Kerester has more than 33 years of experience as a banker, principal investor, CFO and Board Director. He has been involved in a variety of capital markets transactions including: venture financings, leveraged buyouts, growth capital raises, acquisitions, divestitures, hostile takeovers, IPOs, restructurings and bankruptcies. Mr. Kerester has been a board member of seven companies, including one listed on the New York Stock Exchange

Mr. Kerester began his career on Wall Street in New York City and has worked for Bankers Trust, Credit Suisse First Boston, McCown De Leeuw, Distribution Dynamics and other firms. He joined Wood Warren in 2010. 

He holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and a BS in Economics from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Company: Wood Warren & Co. is a boutique investment banking firm focused on serving middle market companies throughout the supply chains in the Food, Beverage and Agriculture industries. The Firm, located in Emeryville, was founded in 1991 and provides mergers and acquisitions (buy and sell side), capital raising (debt and equity) and corporate finance advisory services.

All of the Partners at Wood Warren have more than 25 years of corporate finance experience and worked for some of the largest investment and commercial banks in the world, including: Morgan Stanley, Lehman Brothers, Kidder Peabody, First Boston, JP Morgan, Bankers Trust and ABN AMRO. By advising Fortune 500 and private companies across a variety of industries and throughout various economic cycles, the Partners have accumulated a broad set of experiences and skills, which they bring to all of their middle market clients.

Wood Warren has completed transactions for nurseries, farmers, food processors, equipment manufacturers, distributors, service providers, wineries, craft breweries, food retailers, restaurants and numerous companies outside of the food, beverage and agriculture industries.

Representative Clients include:

Beverage: Redhook Ale Brewery, Chalk Hill Estate Winery, DuMOL
Food: Bell-Carter Foods, Grace Baking, Pasta Pomodoro, Premier Mushroom, TCHO
Agriculture: Vintage Nurseries, Mercier California, Woolf Enterprises

Investment Banking Focused On Food, Beverage & Agriculture

Brian Kerester

Partner

Wood Warren & Co.

T: (510) 420-3848

E: bkerester@woodwarren.com