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Mr. Smith is the founder and managing director of the Boston-based Turan Corporation, which specializes in trading emerging market sovereign debt and evaluating creditor claims against foreign governments.
A graduate of Bowdoin College and Boston University School of Law, Mr. Smith served as a loan officer and economic liaison for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in Vietnam, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic and Brazil. He later joined Deltec Bank of Sao Paulo, Brazil, before returning to the United States in the mid-1970s where he established a law practice specializing in international debt collections.
Turan Corporation was founded as Turam ("Turkish-American") Corporation in 1978, and soon became one the largest privately held sovereign debt trading firms in the world. The company's many achievements include purchasing $7 million of Turkish Non-Guaranteed Trade Arrears (NGTAs) in 1980, making it the first company to develop its own debt/equity investment in Turkey. The company forged similar archetype deals in places such as El Salvador, Nigeria and Guatemala.
Peter Marber, the author of From Third World to World Class: The Future of Emerging Markets in the Global Economy (Perseus, 1998), credits Mr. Smith as one of four individuals who contributed "significantly to the birth of the debt market, and possibly even the entire emerging markets investment community, well ahead of Wall Street's more prominent houses."
Mr. Smith is a noted authority on developing world debt and has been cited or quoted in numerous publications including the Wall Street Journal, Africa Economic Digest, The Financial Times, International Business, and various journals of Euromoney Publications of London. From 1986 to '88 he wrote the monthly column "Blocked Currency" for Euromoney Treasury Report. Mr. Smith is a sought-after speaker and has addressed numerous professional groups on matters relating to emerging markets.
Mr. Smith has served as a trustee of various nonprofit organizations, including the Roxbury Latin School, Caribbean Central American Action, Oxford Academy, the Fessenden School, Plimoth Plantation and the Massachusetts Trade Advisory Board. He is a benefactor of the David Saul Smith Union at Bowdoin College and the Robert P. Smith Art Center and Theater at the Roxbury Latin School.
Mr. Smith and his wife, Salwa, have two children and two grandchildren. The couple resides in Boston.
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