Rami Cassis is the Principal at Parabellum Investments, the family office through which he acquires and leads businesses across sectors and geographies, with a particular appetite for complex and special situations. Investing his own capital, he offers sellers, boards and advisers the speed and certainty of a principal buyer, and brings more than three decades of experience as a CEO, COO and chairman to every business he backs.
Rami Cassis
Since founding Parabellum in 2012, Cassis has built a portfolio spanning technology, financial services, business and IT services, life sciences, mining, oil and gas, and luxury retail. He is drawn to opportunities that sit outside conventional processes, whether that's corporate carve-outs, non-core divisions, siloed assets and businesses in transition, where operating experience counts for as much as capital.
He typically takes a controlling stake and works closely with management, often as chairman, to build resilient businesses for the long term.
That approach is grounded in a career spent running businesses rather than advising them. Cassis has grown companies from $5m to $150m in revenue and led transactions including reverse takeovers, take-privates, mergers and acquisitions.
He founded Parseq in 2007 through the buyout of Atos Origin's payment processing division, later took it private, returned it from loss to £3m profit and sold it to Paragon Group.
He began his career with a 10-year tenure at Schlumberger, rising from operating engineer through a succession of management roles, including Director of the Asian region. After a period as a board advisor at KPMG Consulting, he became Managing Director of BPO/ITO at Atos in the UK.
Cassis holds degrees in Aerospace Engineering and Pure and Applied Mathematics from the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia.
Background
Writes forBusiness Reporter, IFLR, 9AM Business, The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times
StudiedAerospace Engineering, University of New South Wales, Pure and Applied Mathematics, University of New South Wales
Rami Cassis is the principal of Parabellum Investments, a family office through which he invests solely his own capital in lower mid-market and mid-market businesses. He has been investing since the late 2000s across technology, pharma and life sciences, oil and gas, mining and financial services. Rami Cassis is known for hands-on operational investing and for publishing The First 30 Days, his blueprint for what an investor should do immediately after acquisition.
What does Parabellum Investments actually do?
Parabellum Investments takes controlling stakes in high-potential lower mid-market and mid-market businesses worldwide, alongside corporate carve-outs and non-core assets. It is Rami Cassis's own family office, so the capital at risk is his rather than a fund's, and deals proceed without an LP committee. Rami Cassis is the principal and works directly alongside portfolio CEOs on clients, culture, talent and workflows rather than sitting above them as a financial sponsor.
What will Rami Cassis speak to for a story, and how fast does he reply?
Rami Cassis comments on the first 30 days after an acquisition, operational diligence beyond the P&L, corporate carve-outs and non-core assets, how investors should challenge a CEO, and the difference between investing your own money and other people's. He also discusses mistakes he has made as an operator-investor. Rami Cassis does not comment on the confidential specifics of portfolio companies. Journalists on deadline generally get a same-day response.
Why does Rami Cassis say investors should not just back a CEO and get out of the way?
Rami Cassis argues that giving a CEO total autonomy is a mistake, because a detached investor misses the operational signals that decide whether a business grows or stalls. He distinguishes this from micromanagement: it means being in the room on clients, culture, talent and workflows alongside the CEO. In his view lower mid-market businesses have weaker talent and less mature processes than corporates, which makes investor intervention matter more, not less.
Why does Rami Cassis insist growth plans are decided in 30 days rather than six months?
Rami Cassis rejects the conventional wisdom that a turnaround or growth plan needs three months or more to design, and holds that the decisive work happens in the first 30 days. He has codified what to assess, what to change and what to leave alone in his newsletter, The First 30 Days. His 2007 corporate disposal, a cash-hemorrhaging carve-out, was returned to growth within a year and became a leader in its BPO segment.
