Advantage Data
A Transparent View of the Private Bond Market

Amid the economic uncertainty that the COVID-19 pandemic has brought forth, many businesses are now turning to the private credit market to raise capital and sustain their operations. And as private investors are coming forward to help the companies, it is also imperative on these private lenders’ part to optimize their investments, or in other words—maximize their ROI.

Many institutional lenders are consequently doubling down on the borrower’s detailed credit analyses and debt history. They also need to collect and assess historical bond and loan pricing data to make informed investment decisions. However, in a marketplace known for lack of data visibility, the aforementioned processes can quickly turn tedious and cumbersome. An investor’s credit analysts often spend long hours aggregating and analyzing bond or loan prices from multiple sources to create pricing comparisons (comps) and verify the borrowers. Helping these private lenders in such endeavors is Advantage Data.

Advantage Data has been a trusted name for its best-of-breed fintech solutions across the high-yield and high-growth markets. Now drawing on its years of expertise, Advantage Data has developed Private Bond Advantage—a first-of-its-kind pricing and analytical tool explicitly designed for credit analyses. The workstation solution makes it easy for the credit analysts to collate and view credit and credit-derivative data from many sources, thereby increasing the data visibility of the opaque market. “With our latest credit bond product, credit analysts will have access to data from over 830 unique sources,” underscores Rene Robert, the founder and president of Advantage Data.

But how did it all start?

Notably, Advantage Data is the embodiment of Robert’s efforts of empowering high-yield analysts in the credit markets. In 1996, Robert joined the High Yield Department of BancBoston Securities (now Bank of America Merrill Lynch). During his time at BancBoston, Robert realized the need to automate daily processes that usually took hours for analysts to perform. This realization is what led to the inception of Advantage Data in 1997. Since then, Advantage Data has developed innovative credit analysis workstation solutions for investment banks, advisory firms, business development companies (BDC), and asset management companies, thereby cementing a unique position within the financial services industry.

Today, Advantage Data’s patented products and services cover 15 asset classes across bonds, loans, and equities. And with the addition of the Private Bond Advantage to its existing portfolio of products and services, Advantage Data is now bringing more transparency into the private credit market.

Advantage Data has developed Private Bond Advantage—a first-of-its-kind pricing and analytical tool explicitly designed for credit analyses

"Our newest asset class (i.e., private bonds) perfectly complements our corporate credit suite of services around BDC and middle markets,” states Robert. With this workstation solution, credit analysts can take advantage of the Historical New Issues Reports and Holdings Reports, along with powerful and intuitive comps functions and Bond Calculators, to commingle securities with other asset classes and draw unique and actionable insights.

What takes the usability of Private Bond Advantage a few notches higher is its straightforward user interface. Every function of the platform is logically designed to gather a significant amount of information in the shortest time. “Thus, users can focus solely on building organizational success atop Private Bond Advantage,” highlights Sourav Srimal, the co-head of product development at Advantage Data. Besides, remote users can access the web-based workstation from anywhere around the world, making it a preferred tool of choice during the lockdown periods.

Continuing ahead with its mission of helping capital markets professionals, Advantage Data is now poised to bring more efficiency in the financial sector. Advantage Data is increasingly working with buy-side clients on their middle- and back-office functions to deliver data via Excel add-in, data feed, and APIs in addition to the long-standing workstation service for the front office. And based on all the clients’ feedback, the company is now driving new product ideas while adding more functionalities and capabilities to its existing solutions. “As we continue to expand in different areas of the financial services sector, our core drive will always be to make credit analysis more transparent and comprehensive for every stakeholder,” says Robert. “And for this, we will keep improving our offerings based on changing market demands and empowering private lenders.”