A Conversation with Poker Champion Gershon Distenfeld

In this episode Rabbi Wildes speaks with World Series of Poker winner Gershon Distenfeld. Gershon M. Distenfeld, Senior Vice President, is Co-Head of Fixed Income, Director of Credit and a member of the Operating Committee. As Co-Head of Fixed Income, he is responsible for the management and strategic growth of AB’s fixed-income business. As Director of Credit, Distenfeld oversees all of AB’s credit-related strategies, including all global and regional investment-grade and high-yield strategies, as well as their associated investment strategy, activities and portfolio-management teams. In this capacity, he leads AB’s internal Credit Research Review Committee, the primary investment policy and decision-making committee for all credit-related portfolios the firm manages. Distenfeld also co-manages AB’s multiple-award-winning High Income Fund, named “Best Fund over 10 Years” by Lipper from 2012 to 2015, and the multiple-award-winning Global High Yield and American Income portfolios, flagship fixed-income funds on the firm’s Luxembourg-domiciled fund platform for non-US investors. He also designed and is one of the lead portfolio managers for AB’s Multi-Sector Credit Strategy, which invests across investment-grade and high-yield credit sectors globally. Distenfeld is the author of a number of published papers, including one on high-yield bonds being attractive substitutes for equities and another on the often-misunderstood differences between high-yield bonds and loans. Distenfeld joined AB in 1998 as a fixed-income business analyst, and served as a high-yield trader (1999–2002) and high-yield portfolio manager (2002–2006) before being named director of High Yield in 2006. He began his career as an operations analyst supporting Emerging Markets Debt at Lehman Brothers. Distenfeld holds a BS in finance from the Sy Syms School of Business at Yeshiva University, and is a CFA charterholder.