Company - Visible Markets

Started in November 1999, Visible Markets, Inc. operated the leading online marketplace for the less liquid fixed-income markets. Visible Markets specialized in the complex and less liquid asset classes of structured securities (MBS, ABS, & CMBS) and investment grade corporates. We were successful in uniting a wide community of institutional investors and dealers to enhance liquidity, reduce transaction costs, and improve price transparency for all market participants.

As with any major securities market, the effort to establish liquidity takes years and an enormous investment during the development phase. For a brief period in the late 90’s, the markets, both private and public, opened up enormous opportunities (and capital) for new companies to act on long-term business models and push the limits of innovation. Over the last year, financial support for such endeavors dried up and the Visible Marketplace technology was sold.

The order routing technology was purchased by Thomson Financial and the new issue technology was licensed by our former business partner, ESpeed.

Finally, a group of former employees of Visible Markets has formed Fixed Income Consulting. Fixed Income Consulting has licensed and is customizing and marketing the software behind the Visible Marketplace. Since the senior staff of FIC was instrumental in building the world's first and only MBS and ABS bond trading platform, they will be able to use Visible Markets software and expertise to fundamentally improve the way companies interact with their customers through increased efficiency and broader access.

The Visible Markets Story

A Market in Need of a Solution
Demand for fixed-income liquidity has risen dramatically over the past couple of years as fixed-income assets under management have more than doubled over the last decade. Crises such as the October 1998 liquidation of LTCM reinforce the need for more liquid fixed-income markets. While these dynamics pressure firms to transact more efficiently, finding markets for the growing number of fixed income securities (over 4.5 million today) has become increasingly difficult. Visible Markets gathered buyers and sellers of all sizes together in a single, efficient marketplace creating greater liquidity, broader market access, and lower transaction costs for all market participants.

Quickly Distinguishing Itself as the Market Leader
Visible Markets incorporated input from numerous buy-side and sell-side institutions to develop its best-of-breed marketplace. Based on this input, Visible Markets enhanced its service based on direct customer feedback. At the time of closure, Visible Markets had incorporated over 18 months of customer feedback into the most advanced fixed income trading market available. The Visible Markets system received numerous accolades from industry professionals and was generally regarded as the leading independent trading platform by industry analysts.

The Visible Marketplace^TM leveraged the communication, cost, and time efficiencies brought by the Internet to enable buyers and sellers to reach a broader range of institutions than previously practical. The 60,000+ security portfolio database represented the world’s first combination of instant messaging with a networked, searchable database of fixed income holdings. For the first time, fixed income professionals could anonymously message peers concerning fixed income securities and share indications of interest linked to updated holdings. The anonymity that the system provides enables all market participants to bid and offer bonds on equal footing. Since Visible Markets never took a position, both the buy-side and sell-side had a truly neutral counter party with which to do business.

Diverse and Growing Customer Base
All the employees of Visible Markets express a sincere thank you to all the industry participants who supported the successful development, launch, and trading over the last 2 years. Visible Markets' customer base of institutional investors and dealers was diverse by size, type of institution, and style of money management. Asset managers, banks, broker/dealers, credit unions, government-sponsored entities, mutual funds, pension funds, and other accredited institutions all participated in The Visible Marketplace. Over 900 individuals from more than 200 institutions benefited from the unique and valuable market information and trade execution capabilities Visible Markets offered.

Well-Established Business Partners and Strategic Investors
In addition to customers, Visible Markets extends an enormous thank you to all business partners who aligned with the vision of the marketplace and provided assistance in the development of VM. Visible Markets established an extensive network of relationships with premier financial services organizations such as GMAC Commercial Mortgage, Intex, Applied Financial Technology, eSpeed, and State Street's Global Link. This network of strategic relationships provided Visible Markets' users with the latest, most sophisticated information and tools available with which to make their investment decisions.

In addition to early-stage funding from Greylock Partners, one of the nation's most successful venture firms, and several Wall Street angel investors, eSpeed, Inc. and State Street Corporation invested in Visible Markets. It is with our deepest sympathies that we extend condolences to all the members of the eSpeed family who lost loved ones due to the World Trade Center tragedy. The fact that eSpeed was operational within a week of the tragedy in order to begin building support for the victims is testament to the caliber of personnel we had the privilege of working with over the last year and a half.

Experienced Team of Professionals
The Visible Markets staff combined experience from leading financial institutions and Internet companies including: Amazon.com, BARRA, Bear Stearns, BEA Systems, Credit Suisse First Boston, Fidelity, Freddie Mac, J.P. Morgan, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Microsoft, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, NASD, Prudential Securities, Rational Software, Reuters, Salomon Smith Barney, and State Street Global Advisors.

Team
The Visible Markets management team combines experience from numerous leading financial institutions and technology companies.

Brian Robertson, Founder & Chief Executive Officer
Prior to co-founding Visible Markets, Brian was a group program manager at Amazon.com. There he was instrumental in launching Amazon.com's toy business in addition to many community projects such as Purchase Circles and the rating of reviews (competitive to ePinions). Before that, Brian co-founded PlanetAll where he was Chief Technical Officer. Amazon.com acquired PlanetAll for $100M in 1998.

Brian was also a management consultant to financial service institutions at Mitchell Madison Group and worked for four years as a software developer on Meeting Maker, a group-scheduling product from ON Technology. Brian is a graduate of MIT with a degree in Computer Science.

Sam Choi, Founder & Chief Operating Officer
Prior to co-founding Visible Markets, Sam was a vice president at Lehman Brothers. He was a trader on the sell-side, trading mortgage derivatives for Lehman's broker-dealer desk, and traded all types of instruments for Lehman's bond arbitrage group. In addition, Sam worked for three years as a research analyst at BARRA, which develops analytics and trading systems for buy-side participants.

Sam has published three articles in the Journal of Fixed Income and has been a speaker at numerous fixed income securities conferences. Sam is a graduate of MIT with a degree in Mathematics.

Alan D. Reese, Chief Financial Officer
With nearly 20 years experience in financial and accounting issues related to securitization, mortgage banking, and commercial banking, Al joins Visible Markets from Mortgage Lenders Network USA, Inc. where he was Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Prior to that, Al spent seven years at BankBoston in the Finance and Consumer Lending Divisions, and fourteen years with Coopers & Lybrand, the last three of which were as a Partner in the Boston Office. Al also spent two years at the Financial Accounting Standards Board as a Practice Fellow, where he developed the initial accounting standards for Collateralized Mortgage Obligations and credit card securitizations.

Al is a Certified Public Accountant, a graduate of the University of Wisconsin - Eau Claire with a bachelor's degree in accounting, and a Trustee and Chairman of the Finance Committee for Berklee College of Music in Boston.

Peter Beebee, Chief Technology Officer
Prior to joining Visible Markets, Peter co-founded Flash Communications, an enterprise instant messaging company. He sold Flash Communications to Microsoft, where he incorporated his product into Microsoft's Exchange Server. In addition, Peter has worked on several projects with both the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science and the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center.

Peter has authored five patents and is a graduate of MIT with degrees in both Computer Science and Mathematics.

Charles Smart, Vice President of Analytics
Prior to joining Visible Markets, Charles headed Nomura Securities International's highly-rated analytics team as a Managing Director and Head of Mortgage Trading. During Charles's tenure, Nomura's mortgage trading desk was ranked among Wall Street's leading market makers in mortgage passthroughs and CMO derivatives. Prior to heading the trading desk, Charles traded mortgage derivatives and developed mortgage analytics for Nomura.

For the eight years prior, Charles held various senior technology positions with Citibank. He last served as Head of Group Technology and Architecture at Citibank's Private Banking Group, the largest non-Swiss private bank, where he was responsible for the architecture and development of front- and back-office systems. Charles also worked as an independent, systems security and performance analyst in Europe for three years.

Charles has published papers in finance and artificial intelligence. He holds a degree in Computer Science from the University of Greenwich, England and an MBA in Finance from New York University.

Bill Martin, Vice President of Marketing
Prior to joining Visible Markets, Bill was a management consultant with Edgar Dunn & Co., an e-commerce management consulting firm, where he developed marketing strategies for emerging companies. He also served as a Fixed Income Consultant with BARRA where he managed buy-side client relationships and provided technical and consulting expertise on fixed income portfolio risk management.

Bill graduated from The University of California at Davis with a BS in Economics and earned his MBA from The University of Michigan Business School.

James Ednie, Vice President of Sales
With over 30 years of experience in origination, trading, marketing and distribution of fixed-income products, James joins Visible Markets from ABN AMRO, Inc. where he was Managing Director of North American Sales. Prior to ABN AMRO, Inc., James held numerous leadership positions including 18 years at Merrill Lynch where he last served as Senior Vice President, Head of High Yield Trading and High Grade Corporates. James was also the Managing Director, Head of Credit Trading at CS First Boston and Kidder Peabody.

Ted Healey, Vice President of Technology
Ted brings eight years of product development and management experience at startups and Fortune 500 companies alike to Visible Markets technology group, which includes development, quality assurance, network operations, and database design and administration. Ted helped found Internet Tools, Inc., whose innovative networking security products prompted a 1999 acquisition by AXENT Technologies, Inc. He has extensive experience building teams to deliver breakthrough technology.

Ted holds a BA from Penn State and an MA from Boston College.

Andrew S. Rogovin, Vice President of Legal & Administration
Prior to joining Visible Markets, Andy was an attorney at the law firm of Hutchins, Wheeler & Dittmar, a Professional Corporation. There his practice focused on new media and emerging growth businesses, including representation of institutional private equity investors, as well as numerous start-ups and emerging companies. Andy's public securities experience includes issuer-side representation in multiple public offerings of equity, debt and structured securities. He is a graduate of Northeastern University School of Law (juris doctor) and Brandeis University, with a degree in Philosophy and Psychology.