Dacker Chen

Dacker Chen is a Vice President on Contrarian Capital Management's Emerging Markets team. Contrarian's official team page says he joined the firm in 2021 and is responsible for "generating, analyzing, and monitoring distressed and special situation investment opportunities."

Before Contrarian, Chen was a Senior Associate at Falcon Investment Advisors, described by Contrarian as an opportunistic credit manager. Onex acquired Falcon Investment Advisors in December 2020; Onex said Falcon provided private credit financing solutions, had $3.8 billion of assets under management as of September 30, 2020, and used an opportunistic approach to mezzanine and other direct-lending investments for U.S. middle-market companies.

From 2015 to 2019, Chen worked in Macquarie Group's principal investment team, focusing on public and private investments across the capital structure globally. Earlier in his career, he worked as an Analyst at McKinsey & Company and as an Investment Associate at Bridgewater Associates.

Chen graduated magna cum laude from Tufts University with dual BA and MA degrees in International Relations and Quantitative Economics. He is fluent in Mandarin and is a CFA charterholder. Tufts Financial Network also identifies him as Dacker Ding Chen, A12, F14, consistent with the Tufts degree years.

• Contrarian's Emerging Markets strategy, where Chen sits, targets opportunistic credit and special situations globally, with particular expertise in complex cross-border investments.
• The strategy invests across stressed, distressed, and defaulted corporate and sovereign debt; select stressed and post-reorganized equities; and opportunistic short positions with specific catalysts.
• Contrarian emphasizes deep fundamental credit research, local and international legal analysis, hard catalysts to unlock value, business-risk analysis, cash-flow analysis, asset values, sources of repayment, and downside protection.
• The firm's stated edge includes "complex capital structures" and "off-the-run" opportunities that larger credit funds may traffic less heavily.
• The firm's process is research-heavy and team-based: Contrarian says it performs all research in-house and has multiple investment professionals dissect ideas from different perspectives.