Leeds Equity Partners Announces Fulcrum Financial Data

UNIQUE, FAST-GROWING FINANCIAL TECHNOLOGY AND INFORMATION PLATFORM BRINGS TOGETHER FOUR ENTREPRENEURIAL COMPANIES, INCLUDING NEWLY LAUNCHED LEVFIN INSIGHTS

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Leeds Equity Partners, LLC

Sep 07, 2016, 09:00 ET

NEW YORK, Sept. 7, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Leeds Equity Partners introduces Fulcrum Financial Data, LLC ("Fulcrum or FFD"), a new entity that brings four unique companies together to offer real-time news, covenant analysis, and data content for the credit markets.

Fulcrum Financial Data is the combination of four entrepreneurial companies that are leading providers of research, news, and data analytics in the credit information space. FFD is headed by Steve Miller, the founder and former CEO of Leveraged Commentary and Data ("LCD"), a subsidiary of S&P Global. Mr. Miller is a pioneer and widely-recognized leader in the credit news and analysis sector, having created, built and managed leading financial news and data companies.

The four businesses are:

Covenant Review, (covenantreview.com), which provides bond indenture and loan agreement analysis on a subscription basis. Covenant Review is led by its founder, Adam Cohen, who first developed subscription research covenant products and is regarded as the preeminent thought leader in covenant analysis;
CapitalStructure, (capitalstructure.com), which is a leading source of timely, accurate news, analysis and data on the sub-investment grade debt markets. CapitalStructure is led by its co-founders Sarah Goodchild and Minaxi Kesra;
LevFin Insights, (LevFinInsights.com), a new subscription information service providing coverage of leveraged loan and high-yield bond markets. LevFin Insights was recently founded by the core former senior managers of Leveraged Commentary and Data: Marc Auerbach, Christopher Donnelly, Matthew Fuller, Kerry Kantin, and Robert Polenberg; and
PacerMonitor, (pacermonitor.com), is a unified, modern and full-featured platform for researching and tracking federal bankruptcy, district, and appellate court cases. PacerMonitor is headed by its founder Joe Rosen who is a restructuring specialist.

Leeds assembled Fulcrum by acquiring leading providers in their space and retaining the founders to continue to drive those businesses. The creation of Fulcrum began with the acquisition of Covenant Review in 2014, which was followed by acquisitions of CapitalStructure and PacerMonitor in 2015. Subsequently, in April 2016, Steve Miller joined to spearhead the holding company with his experience both as an entrepreneur and as an operator of a larger organization in the credit markets.

In September, Shasha Dai, formerly Special Writer of The Wall Street Journal, joined Fulcrum as the New York Bureau Chief of CapitalStructure. Ms. Dai has spent 12 years at The Wall Street Jornal/Dow Jones where she covered private equity, special situations and the credit markets. In addition to writing news stories and commentary, Shasha has moderated panels at WSJ conferences and on-line seminars. Prior to joining Dow Jones, Ms. Dai worked at Reuters's Beijing bureau, and before that was the business and economic correspondent for the international channel of China Central Television.

Leeds' Managing Director Scott VanHoy said, "We are proud to back Fulcrum and its team of entrepreneurs who have decided to coalesce around a single vision for an independent financial information company with a suite of products that are powerful on their own and together even more so."

CEO Steve Miller explains: "Our organization aspires to build on its strengths by attracting and retaining a team of entrepreneurs who see more value in joining to build a singular, larger, more dynamic business. Along these lines, we recently announced LevFin Insights to build out a leveraged finance news wire. We also just brought in Shasha Dai, formerly of the Wall Street Journal, to lead the distressed debt and special situation reporting for our U.S. CapitalStructure business."

For additional information on Fulcrum Financial Data and its businesses, see: fulcrumfinancialdata.com

About Leeds Equity Partners
Leeds Equity Partners, LLC, is a New York-based private equity firm focused exclusively on investing in the education, training and information services industries. The firm was founded by Jeffrey T. Leeds and Robert A. Bernstein in 1993 and has raised and managed more than $1.1 billion of capital across five funds.

For additional information on Leeds Equity Partners, see leedsequity.com

SOURCE Leeds Equity Partners, LLC