Timothy O Gara

Tim O'Gara is the founder and managing director of Shannon Advisors LLC, a boutique placement-agent and advisory firm he established in 2009 and based in Lake Forest, Illinois, in the Chicago area. According to trade-press coverage, O'Gara launched the firm after roughly 20 years in the private-placement groups of Lazard Ltd. and Merrill Lynch & Co., where he specialized in raising institutional capital for private-equity and buyout fund managers. He is registered under the legal name Brian Timothy O'Gara (FINRA CRD #2640600) and is the firm's principal/CEO.

Shannon Advisors was built deliberately as a boutique, in contrast to the large bank-affiliated placement desks its principals came from. O'Gara assembled a team of fellow industry veterans: Hugh Reams Jr., a former managing director of Credit Suisse's Private Fund Group (whom O'Gara had known for more than a decade as a friendly competitor covering the Midwest and Canada), and Fran Lolli, a former Lazard and Merrill Lynch placement specialist who joined as the firm's third partner in early 2010 and who had worked alongside O'Gara since 1997. In explaining the firm's model, Reams described the intent to stay small: *"We don't want to be a big firm like Credit Suisse and have 30 to 40 funds in the market"* — the strategy being to take on a select number of high-quality fund mandates and deliver hands-on service.

Over time the firm's roster has included additional senior placement professionals, with SEC/FINRA and industry data listing figures such as David Sullivan (Managing Director & Partner) and Kevin McGrath (Managing Director). Shannon Advisors is registered with the SEC and FINRA as a broker-dealer (CRD #150305; SEC CIK 1462624) and files annual audited financial statements as a registered broker-dealer.

• What the firm does: Acts as a placement agent, raising institutional capital (from pension funds, endowments, foundations, insurance companies, asset managers, and family offices) on behalf of private-equity, leveraged-buyout, and growth-equity fund managers — it is not a direct/angel investor in operating companies.
• Boutique-by-design: Explicitly rejects the large-shop model; the stated philosophy is to run a small book of fund clients and provide selective, high-touch service (per co-founder Hugh Reams' comments on avoiding "30 to 40 funds in the market").
• Relationship-driven LP coverage: The founders' edge is decades of institutional-LP relationships built at Merrill Lynch, Lazard, and Credit Suisse, with particular historical strength in the U.S. Midwest and Canada.
• Client profile they say yes to: Established or emerging private-equity/buyout/growth GPs with a differentiated, fundable strategy that fits a curated, limited-capacity placement roster.