I caught up with Leo Efstathiou, CEO of FINSIGHT, at the firm’s office in Midtown to catch up on his firm’s expansion into fixed income news and research content . 

FINSIGHT is one of those fascinating businesses you’ve never heard of, but provides data and services that big financial institutions rely on. 

Leo co-founded FINSIGHT in 2013 with Jordan Adler to improve new issue distribution for investment banks. He spent the previous four years working at Barclays. 

FINSIGHT is a 250-person company that touches numerous aspects of “new issue” distribution. It executes thousands of global roadshows, investor calls and data rooms for securities, syndicated loans, and M&A and helps clients analyse investor engagement, orders and allocations. FINSIGHT aims to provide its broker-dealer clients with the tools necessary to electronically syndicate new issues. 

Earlier this year, FINSIGHT acquired Credit Flow Research, a leading new issue wire service covering investment grade corporate bonds. The move enabled FINSIGHT to transition “beyond packaging data, to packaging insights,” in Leo’s words. 

Leo said the group is “small but mighty.” Their writers use AI as a research tool, but guard against the temptation to produce large volumes of “dribble.” He said the priority is timeliness and substance over volume. 

While we were chatting, one of the writers, Oliver West, dropped by. He started his career – just like me – covering Latin American bonds. 

I started writing about Latin American bonds in 1992 as defaulted loans were being re-packaged into Brady bonds. The market has become much more mature and sophisticated. 

We geeked out talking about the transformation over the past three decades. 

It was a good reminder that even as technology changes, the demand for securities and financial information will always be robust, and the market always has room for new players. 

You can connect with Leo via LinkedIn or DM me for a warm introduction.