Software as a service platform Adaje acquired Munex, the bond structuring software from Ferrand Consulting Group, and hired 25-year muni veteran Jon Sidman as its chief product officer.
Munex is used by bond underwriters, municipal advisors, law firms and defeasance desks.
"We're thrilled to welcome Jon as our chief product officer and really bring the whole Munex community into the Adaje family," said founder and CEO Dan Silva.
Jon has "spent decades in the trenches of public finance, building, supporting and iterating on workflows," Silva said. "And that experience is just incredibly rare, so it made a lot of sense for us to figure out a way to work together."
Sidman, who was a partner at Munex and developed its software, said he only became familiar with Adaje recently.
"My first impression left no doubt: This is the future of bond structuring software," he said in an emailed statement, pointing to Adaje's cutting-edge technology stack and integrated AI.
"What impresses me most is that Adaje is doing this in an industry that is not historically known for such innovation," he said.
Silva said the plan is to ease Munex customers to the Adaje platform, "with a clear runway and no disruption." He said they've found AI works best as a layer between customers and the core Adaje model; Adaje is great at bond math and bond structuring, and AI is great at turning user language into analysis.
Adaje plans to unveil "advances in tech, some new capabilities" very soon, Silva said. "When you start thinking about an AI powered bond modeling solution, Jon's experience in delivering a bond structuring solution that people clearly loved is going to really help in guiding that process forward."
Sidman promised an "eye-opening" experience for Munex customers who transition to the Adaje platform.
"I was an analyst for a long time, and you come up with all these great ideas, and it's like, man, now we've just got to find the time to actually run these numbers," Silva said. "And that aspect of it, I think, is going to go away really soon. The time to actually run the numbers is going to be trivial."
Already, Adaje's moves to incorporate AI into their software have been "a game-changer," said Nick Bryant, senior quantitative analyst at Strong Capital Markets. "It cut the time in half."
Bryant turned to Munex to help deal with complex bond structurings.
He then got to know Sidman, who offered tech support. "Munex was always my go-to because I could call up there and get help immediately," Bryant said.
He told Adaje about Sidman.
Adaje has the AI implementation down, Bryant said, "but Jon Sidman has 20 years of experience working with real-world problems and real-world bond issues," he said.
