[2] New Mountain was founded in 1999 by Steven Klinsky who was a former partner at Forstmann Little & Company as well as the co-founder of Goldman Sachs' leveraged buyout unit.

As a result, when Klinsky founded New Mountain, he wanted to take a different approach to other private equity firms which used high amounts of leverage.

This came in the form of two funds, a $9.6 billion flagship private-equity vehicle and a $640 million pool earmarked for noncontrolling stakes in companies.

[4] Mountain Capital has focused on building up mid-sized companies in predictable industries using modest amounts of debt.

The approach has helped New Mountain earn large windfall gains at a time when many of its peers are struggling.