Theo Vermaelen

Theo Vermaelen serves as UBS Professor of Investment Banking in honor of Henry Grunfeld at INSEAD and Visiting Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, with prior teaching appointments at the University of British Columbia, Catholic University of Leuven, and London Business School.

His academic foundation includes a Commercial Engineering degree from Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (1975), followed by an MBA (1976) and Ph.D. (1980) from the University of Chicago.

Vermaelen's research program centers on share buybacks, featuring over ten publications in premier journals, while extending to death spiral convertibles, mergers and acquisitions, IPOs, CoCo bonds, floating priced convertibles, dividend policy, and equity issues. He pioneered the translation of academic insights into practice by launching the world's first buyback fund in 1998.

His publication timeline (1998-2018) reveals consistent focus on corporate finance phenomena, particularly share repurchases, with work appearing in the Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, Review of Financial Studies, and Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis. This research bridges theoretical models and market applications through rigorous empirical analysis of capital allocation strategies.

Vermaelen co-manages the PV Buyback USA fund since 2011, demonstrating practical implementation of his scholarship. No details regarding academic advising or research grants appear in the source material.