Spring Mountain Capital, LP (SMC), an investment management firm that focuses on alternative asset investing, today announced that Avi Faliks, Ph.D., and Jamie Weston joined the firm as Managing Directors in its private equity business. As senior members of the private equity team, Dr. Faliks and Mr. Weston will partner with Raymond Wong, Managing Director and Head of Private Equity, to further extend SMC’s capabilities in sourcing, selecting, and managing its private equity investments.

“We are seeing a growing number of compelling investment opportunities in private equity, and the addition of Avi and Jamie demonstrates our increased commitment to this area of our business,” said Gregory Ho, President of Spring Mountain Capital.

Dr. Faliks founded Vertex Capital Management, a firm that focused on distressed consumer companies that were restructured, rebuilt, and sold to strategic investors. Prior to Vertex Capital Management, Dr. Faliks was the co-founder and Managing Director of Apex Capital Management, a hedge fund based in New York and Hong Kong specializing in Greater China investments. He was previously CEO of AccuImage Diagnostic Corp. Dr. Faliks began his investment career at Bear Stearns’ Strategic Structures and Transactions Group. He received a Ph.D. in Chemical Physics from Princeton University and graduated with a B.A. with honors in Applied Mathematics from Harvard University.

Mr. Weston was previously a Partner at the Wicks Group of Companies, a private equity firm with close to $1 billion under management, focused on selected segments of the information, education, and media industries. During his 15 years at Wicks, he was an integral part of its investment and management activities, and served on the board of directors of many of its portfolio companies. While at Wicks, he directly structured and negotiated more than twenty acquisitions and divestitures and worked on over forty additional closed transactions. Prior to Wicks, Mr. Weston worked at both IBJ Whitehall Bank & Trust Company and National Westminster Bancorp where he completed leveraged financings. He received an M.B.A. from Fordham University and a B.A. in Economics, cum laude, from Drew University.