Osman Semerci is the founder and CEO of a London investment company called EMEA Capital LLP. Semerci founded the company in 2008. However he became CEO and Managing Partner three years later, in 2011, after finishing his tenure as CEO and Managing Partner at Duet Group, a global alternative asset management firm also based in London. 

Education and Early Career

Osman Semerci is originally from Turkey, where he completed his education and began his career. He studied for a B.Sc. in electrical and electronic engineering at Bosphorus University in Istanbul and completed a Post Graduate degree in Management at Marmara University, also in Istanbul. After graduating, he began working as a portfolio manager at Turkinvest & Group Companies, where he stayed for two years before moving on to Geneva and then London to work at Merrill Lynch. 

Semerci stayed at Merrill Lynch for a total of 16 years and specialized in fixed income and derivatives in a wide variety of markets. Over the years he took on several executive roles within the company. Between 2002-2005 he served as Head of the Fixed Income and Equity Trading Division in Asia, Australia and Japan. In 2006 he was appointed Global Head of Fixed Income, Commodities and Currencies (FICC). During his tenure he was also appointed as the company’s co-President of Global Markets and Investment Banking for the EMEA Region, and served on the Global Operating Committee. In 2008, Semerci left Merrill Lynch and joined Duet Group, co-founded by Henry Gabay, where he served as CEO and Managing Partner and oversaw the management of the company’s USD$5.5 billion plus in assets until 2011.

Remarkable Achievements

Throughout his career, Osman Semerci has been widely reported on in the financial media sector. He featured in the Financial news as the number 1 Capital Markets Banker and achieved a spot in the Top 110 Rising Stars in European Finance list. In 2006 he came in first on the Financial News list of Top 100 Rising Stars in European Finance. In the same year he was announced Banker of the Quarter in the 3rd quarter of the year and achieved a spot in the Top 40 Under 40 in European Business. The following year the Financial News announced that he achieved a spot in the Top 100 in European Finance. 

Recent News

Since 2011 Semerci has been serving as CEO and Managing Partner of EMEA Capital, which he himself founded in 2008. EMEA Capital is an independent asset management firm with offices in London and Istanbul. The firm invests its partners’ capital across an array of financial markets, in real estate and private equity funds.

In 2015, while maintaining his role at EMEA Capital, Semerci took on a nine month long position as Managing Partner and COO of GemCorp, an asset management company focused on the emerging markets. He did so to assist the founders – former colleagues of his – during the first critical stages of the company’s establishment.