Sonnie Ayere has amassed years of solid corporate and structured finance, corporate banking and asset management experience working with the following institutions in London – HSBC Bank, NatWest Bank, The Sumitomo Mitsui Bank, Bank of Montreal (BMO)-Nesbitt Burns (the investment banking arm of the Bank of Montreal), the International Finance Corporation (IFC) – World Bank Group – based in Washington D.C. and Johannesburg South Africa; then United Bank of Africa Group (“UBA”)Plc in Lagos, Nigeria. He finally founded Dunn Loren Merrifield in 2009.

Following a successful career in corporate banking and later corporate finance at HSBC, Natwest and The Sumitomo Mitsui bank, Mr. Ayere joined BMO Nesbitt Burns and worked as part of the team responsible for setting up a US$20bn Fixed Income Structured Investment Vehicle (“SIV”) and worked as an analyst / investment manager in charge of investing in complex asset backed securities, mortgage backed securities, corporate bonds, bank subordinated debt to include asset and other types of swaps etc.

He then joined the IFC in Washington and held the position of senior investment officer responsible for structured finance for Africa with country manager responsibilities for Mauritius, Seychelles, Ethiopia and Eritrea. Following this, he became Co-Head – Financial Markets Business Development – Sub Saharan Africa (Anglophone and Lusophone Countries) until leaving in 2005.Thereafter, he joined UBA Group as the Pioneer Managing Director/CEO of UBA Global Markets (“UBAGM”), the investment banking subsidiary of United Bank for Africa from August 2005 to January 2009.

Mr. Ayere then went on to establish Dunn Loren Merrifield early 2009. He possesses extensive cognate experience in fixed income capital markets; as such has played a pivotal role in originating and executing several notable transactions in securitisations, and other various structured finance related transactions internationally and in Nigeria.

Under his stewardship, Dunn Loren Merrifield won the award for the best debt house 2011 and best investment bank 2012. Mr. Ayere is a member of the Nigerian Bond Steering Committee, SEC committee on Market structure & reforms, the Steering Committee for the review of the Foreclosure and Securitization Law of Nigeria, the Central Bank of Nigeria (“CBN”) FSS2020 Technical Steering Committee. He holds an MA seekmedicine.com (Hons.) in Financial Economics from the University of Dundee, Scotland.