Michael J. Ho

Education: S.B., S.M., Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Ph.D., University of Virginia

Michael J. Ho is entering his 18th year teaching in the Finance area at Darden. His research interests have included mergers and acquisitions, initial public offerings, equity research analysts behavior, investment bank reputations and underwriter choice in initial public offerings. 

With over 30 years of experience in mergers and acquisitions, Ho is a managing director and the co-head of Buyside M&A Advisory at Fifth Third Securities, the investment banking division of Fifth Third Bank. Prior to joining Fifth Third, he was co-founder and managing director of Praxis Partners LLC, a financial advisory firm focused on providing mergers and acquisitions advisory services to middle-market companies and custom executive education programs for financial institutions. Before co-founding Praxis Partners and its predecessor company, he was a principal in Mergers and Acquisitions and director of Asia-Pacific Investment Banking at Robertson Stephens & Company, a leading financial adviser to emerging growth companies in the high-technology, health care and consumer products and specialty retailing industries, and an associate in the Mergers and Acquisitions department at the First Boston Corporation, under the direction of Bruce Wasserstein and Joe Perella.

In addition, Ho has developed and delivered custom education programs in the area of corporate finance, valuation, mergers and acquisitions, and corporate strategy. Past education clients include Standard Chartered Bank, State Bank of India, the Madinah Institute of Leadership and Entrepreneurship, Bank of America, NationsBank, Wachovia, SNL Financial, GE Nuclear and EMC Corp. 

Ho has also served as a professor of finance at Babson College and Butler University, teaching courses in financial statement analysis, enterprise valuation, corporate restructuring and investment banking; he is currently a director of the Telamon Corporation and FC2020, LLC.