Since 1957, Mr. Butcher was associated
in various capacities with Butcher & Company, Inc., and its
predecessor firms, Butcher & Sherrerd, of which he was a General
Partner, and Butcher & Singer, Inc. Butcher & Singer, Inc. was the
leading Philadelphia based investment banking and brokerage firm
in the Mid-Atlantic states, prior to its merger, in 1988, into WFS
Financial, which was the parent of Wheat, First, Butcher, Singer.
In February 1998, First Union Bank (now Wachovia) acquired Wheat
First Butcher Singer for over $450 million.
During the 1960’s he served as
assistant to his Father, Howard Butcher, III, chairman and CEO of
one of the earliest large conglomerates, IU International, Inc.,
which had gross revenues of more than $ 4 billion by the early
1970’s. IU owned Ryder PIE Trucking, the largest trucking company
in the U.S., Echo Bay Gold Mines, Gotaas Larsen Shipping, a large
fleet of bulk cargo carriers, super tankers, LNG Carriers and two
cruise ships, General Waterworks, the second largest collection of
privately owned water companies in the U.S., C. Brewer, the
Hawaiian sugar producer and land holder, International Mill
Services, Southwestern Fabricating, Farmbest Foods, Unijax Paper
Company and many other companies. In addition to having founded
the predecessor companies to IU, Butcher III was senior partner of
Butcher & Singer, its largest producer and director of over twenty
six private and public companies at one time.
Howard Butcher, IV assisted his
father during more than two hundred acquisitions, mergers and
private deals. He became the second largest producer in the firm,
started an investment advisory department which was profitable
from day one and opened the Atlanta, New York, Boston and Chicago
markets for the firm’s very large practice in oil & gas, real
estate partnerships and other private equity investments of the
firm’s own manufacture. Mr. Butcher last served the company as
Executive Vice President & Director of Butcher Resources, Inc.,
which was the Energy & Natural Resource investment-banking
subsidiary of Butcher & Company, Inc.
Mr. Butcher was President and CEO of
Butcher International, Inc., a privately owned company that he
founded in 1978, until he liquidated it in 2003. The company
offered investment banking & corporate advisory services to young
and established companies across a wide range of industry. Mr.
Butcher has spent more than forty years as an advisor or
principal, in corporate finance, venture capital and investment &
corporate management, across the full range of industry. He was
especially active in the energy, natural resource and power
generation industries in the 1980's. The company provided advisory
services to foreign & domestic investors seeking real estate,
natural resource, energy & energy-related and other corporate
opportunities in the U.S. The company also engaged in import and
export transactions between the United States, Central & South
America, Europe, Nigeria and elsewhere, primarily in the late
1970's and early '80's.
Currently Mr. Butcher serves as
President & Director of Jenkins Hill International LL, a privately
owned company founded by former U.S Congressman Curt Weldon which
specializes in developing international & national projects of
several types, helping relatively young technology companies take
their technologies to market & grow and various representations of
companies locally and overseas for marketing, finance and
government relations purposes. Jenkins Hill also is involved in
the creation and management of managed pooled funds which invest
in growing technology companies. The emphasis here is on
companies which have very large addressable markets,
transformational technologies and are inexpensively valued
relative to their potential upside valuations. Mr. Butcher also
serves as Secretary and a director of Butcher Energy, Inc.,
(Butcher family owned energy investment firm focused on oil & gas
exploration & development and a large wind farm in Texas) the
Philadelphia Bourse, Inc. (family owned holding company which owns
operating companies) and as a Director of JMJ Technologies, LLC.
He is a past chairman & director of DRX, Inc., (precious metals
exploration and development) and formerly a director of
Coopersburg Handle & Tool Company, Distribix, Inc. (eighth largest
U.S. paper distribution company), Harrison Industries, PLC (small
British conglomerate), Alexandra Mining, Ltd. (precious metals
mining holding company), Holmes Protection of Philadelphia
(commercial & residential security), Frances Denny, Inc.
(cosmetics & fragrances), Chadds Ford Capital LLC (asset
management firm) and International Light & Power, Limited.
Mr.
Butcher graduated from The Hill School and attended the University
of Pennsylvania, of which he is a former Associate Trustee. He
has served as Chairman of the Board of Managers of Moore College
of Art (all woman art college), Vice Chairman of the Rosenbach
Museum & Library (rare books and manuscripts), Trustee of the Hill
School (private boarding & day secondary school), The Baldwin
School (all girls secondary day school), The Vanguard School
(school for emotionally & socially disadvantaged children), The
Children's’ House (local Montessori school), Voorhees College (one
of the eight all black colleges associated with the Episcopal
Church), The Graduate Hospital of the Hospitals of the University
of Pennsylvania, Trustee & Vice Chairman of the Rosenbach Museum &
Library & Trustee of Community Academy of Philadelphia, a
successful Charter School in the "badlands" of North Philadelphia
and the Opera Company of Philadelphia.
He has also served as Rector’s Warden
of Christ Church, Ithan, as Accounting Warden of the Church of The
Holy Trinity, Rittenhouse Square, both Episcopal, and on the
property committee of the Diocese of Pennsylvania (manages all the
assets of that diocese). He is a fourth generation member of the
Union League of Philadelphia, and a member of Zeta Psi Fraternity
of North America and The First Troop-Philadelphia City Cavalry.
He is a past President of the Saint Andrew’s Society of
Philadelphia; a Trustee of the St. Andrew’s Society Foundation, a
member of its Scholarship Selection committee and is a member of
various other clubs and organizations. He currently serves as a
lay reader at St. Christopher’s Church, Gladwyne and as a member
of the Advisory Board of Southwest Philadelphia Academy for Boys,
a new Charter School providing a rigorous curriculum for talented,
motivated minority boys in Philadelphia, based on the model of the
Boston Latin School and the Haverford School.
