Sector developments and company hires

CLO library launched
Semeris has today launched a document library called Semeris Docs for CLOs. The service initially covers European CLO documents and summaries on over 75 transactions, which will continue to grow and see a US CLO library launched in 1Q21.

Semeris Docs is built on NLP (natural language processing) and the latest AI techniques, combined with human curation, with the aim of providing accurate summaries and interactive versions of legal documentation in the capital markets. To maintain transparency, the deal summaries include an instant direct connection between analysis and source documents.

Semeris Docs for CLOs is supported by feedback from over 20 global market participants across managers, investors, arrangers, lawyers and trustees. The service aims to ease the review of documents and help users navigate legal language through summaries of the key terms, an enhanced document viewer aware of legal terms and features such as tracking synonyms of defined terms across deals.

Semeris was founded in April 2020 by CLO market veteran Peter Jasko and fintech entrepreneur Sam Daroczy. With an international team of 15 software developers, curators, sales and marketing specialists, Semeris is privately funded from the founders’ three previous fintech exits.

Mid-market investment firm formed
Bennett Goodman and Avi Kalichstein have established Hunter Point Capital (HPC), an independent investment firm seeking minority stakes in middle-market alternative asset managers. As part of the launch, HPC has formed a strategic partnership with a group of leading global investment entities associated with Jacob Rothschild.

Headquartered in New York, HPC is targeting managers in private equity, credit, real estate and infrastructure across North America, Europe and Asia. Goodman will serve as executive chairman and Kalichstein as ceo of the firm. The former co-founded and built GSO Capital Partners, while the latter was most recently a managing principal at Easterly Partners Group.

Joining HPC as president is Michael Arpey, who most recently served as global head of investor relations and management committee member at The Carlyle Group. Other senior executive management team members include: Rex Chung, head of capital formation (formerly head of client & partner group in Asia at KKR); Debra Bricker, cfo (formerly cfo of Harvest Partners); and Mariska Richards, general counsel (who will join HPC in January 2021 from Kirkland & Ellis, where she is a partner).

North America
Brian Herr has joined Exos Financial as md, based in New York. He was previously cio and co-head of structured credit and asset finance at Medalist Partners and before that worked at Candlewood Investment Group.