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David Gardner

David Leslie Gardner (born January 5, 1963) is an American businessman best known as being one of the original team members of the iShares ETF (Exchange Traded Fund) business.

iShares was launched in May of 2000 by Barclays Global Investors (BGI), a wholly owned subsidiary of Barclays. With the launch of iShares a massive educational effort was needed for professional investors in the U.S. Gardner, working in conjunction with several other key iShares team members, led an effort to bring the approach of "risk budgeting" or "core and satellite" which provides a quantitative method of blending skilled active managers with index managers. In 2003, Gardner was asked to lead a new effort to grow the iShares business by concentrating on the largest private banks. Gardner led a team to develop this area for several years. The private banking business for iShares under Gardner developed into a multi-billion dollar business and remains one of the most lucrative area of the global ETF industry.

In 2009 Gardner accepted the role as head of Asia Pacific distribution for iShares and moved to Hong Kong. Working with another Managing Director of iShares in Hong Kong, Gardner devised and launched a set of Chinese based sector ETF products which were the first of their kind in the global ETF industry. The initial seed capital for these products exceeded $400 million which was an ETF industry record.

While Gardner was in Hong Kong, Barclays confirmed on March 16, 2009 that it was planning to sell iShares to CVC Capital Partners, a private equity firm that had agreed to pay more than $4 billion. However, under a 45 day "go shop" clause, a later bid by BlackRock was announced on June 11, 2009 for the whole of the parent devision Barclays Global Investors including iShares, in a mixed cash-stock deal worth around US$13.5 billion ($37.8 million shares of common stock and US$6.6 billion in cash). After the close of this transaction November of 2009, Gardner was asked to relocate to London, UK where he led all distribution efforts.

FYI: Citing to come in next few days.... and finishing of article.