Peter Doralt

Peter Doralt, the 2001 winner of the Nico Colchester Fellowship, was born in Vienna in 1976. He graduated from the London School of Economics (BSc Management) in 1998, the Ecoles des Hautes Etudes Commerciales (Diplôme HEC, Paris) in 2000 and Vienna University of Economics and B.A. (PhD, Economics) in 2004.

For his Nico Colchester Fellowship, Peter interned for The Economist’s Business and Finance sections where he wrote about a wide range of topics, including management consultants cursed with an overdose of talent; equity underwriting in Europe; German brewers, which are small beer for foreigner invaders; the unquenched thirst of RWE for American Water; and Martin Walser, back then a promising German writer aged 74.

Peter joined Financial Times Deutschland in Frankfurt in 2001, where he wrote for Das Kapital, the German equivalent of the FT’s investment column Lex. He moved from Das Kapital to work for Lex in London in 2003, before being posted to New York in 2005. At Lex, he was responsible for a wide range of topics, including technology, telecoms, consumer staples, tobacco, retailing, capital goods, financial services and Eastern European bond markets, as well as for sneaking gloomy comments about the deteriorating long-term prospects of the US economy into the paper.

Peter decided to take a break from journalism in 2007 and now works on mergers and acquisitions at Verbund, a leading central European utility. His previous work experiences include stints in corporate finance advisory with JP Morgan, BNP Paribas and Dresdner Kleinwort Benson, as well as an interlude at real estate private equity venture Moor Park Capital Partners. Having recently returned to his native Vienna, Peter very much looks forward to realising a long-held ambition: finally learning how to dance properly in time for the next ball season.