Company Overview

The fixed income market encompasses unique and complex asset classes for which credit analysis, benchmarking, portfolio management and reporting and trade order management is an ongoing challenge. Led by industry veterans Kevin MacDonald, Wayne Elpus and Andy Horwitz, Black Mountain Systems, LLC has developed a credit management system that has been built with a customizable asset design in order to support loans, bonds, equities, asset backed securities, swaps, and virtually any other investment product in the market.

By leveraging the deep and relevant experience of its founders and investors, Black Mountain Systems delivers superior front office software to asset managers, private equity investors, mutual funds, hedge funds and other institutional investors who invest in high-yield loans, bonds, derivatives and other structured products. Black Mountain has completed development of “Everest,” a system that provides a snapshot of all the investments an asset manager holds with the ability to quickly sort by industry, rating, leverage etc. and streamlines the allocation process, related trade order management requirements, and credit analysis needs for investors. Although initially designed specifically for syndicated loan investors and traders and intended to handle floating rate loans, the system currently manages assets throughout the fixed income and equity markets.

Black Mountain’s management and lead investor group has over 150 years of credit market experience. MacDonald was the lead developer and founding partner at Financial Computer Software, where he spearheaded development of the widely used Wall Street Office loan accounting system. Elpus ran FCS’s highly successful consulting practice, serving the leading investors in the syndicated loan market and Horwitz brings 20 years of industry expertise in underwriting, distribution and trading of high yield bonds, loans and structured products at Wachovia, Goldman Sachs and AMRESCO.  This combination of experience, industry relationships, sponsorship and business focus provides the necessary support to make Everest the industry standard.

Black Mountain is backed by individuals with a proven track record of innovation and success in the credit markets. In addition to the founding management team, the original investors have deep experience, including principals of The Carlyle Group’s debt management business. Serving on the Black Mountain Board of Directors are Steve Miller, founder of Portfolio Management Data (PMD) and current head of Standard and Poors LCD, Mike Rushmore, founder of Markit Group’s syndicated loan pricing service and Bram Smith, Executive Director for the LSTA.

Due to the complexity and uniqueness of the fixed income asset classes, portfolio managers and traders often track their trading information in sophisticated spreadsheets which are challenging and expensive to manage. Trade information flow is commonly based on e-mails and informal conversations, making automated reporting and corporate compliance challenging over the life cycle of an investment.

Registered advisors are continuously improving their credit analysis, portfolio management and trading oversight capabilities as required by Sarbanes-Oxley. Everest facilitates these compliance initiatives by automating trade order management and through integration with leading industry vendors.

Black Mountain Systems has used its extensive management experience, customer sponsorship, alliance partnerships with key vendors and the latest in technology to build a front office system that provides a straight-through-process for trade order management. Everest allows users to customize a trading and allocation process based on their individual needs and provides traders and portfolio managers a customizable front end that delivers real time trade and position information in a format specific to their unique needs.  Everest also provides a credit tracking module which allows managers access to a wide variety of data and analytics, currently locked up in proprietary analyst specific spreadsheets.  Analysts can continue to use their proprietary, non-standardized spreadsheets to enter financials and other deal information while allowing Everest to capture this information via an innovative mappings process.  The resultant data can be used to analyze a portfolio on an aggregate basis including benchmarking vs. specific indexes as well as provide a means to monitor historical financial performance and proactively report on actual or potential covenant violations.