What We Offer
We work with you on every element to prepare you for success
You leverage our decades of operating experience for your team
Years of distribution expertise and high degree of familiarity with the demands of investors
How We Help You
- Product optimization:
We work with you on the investment process including quantitative and qualitative modeling, risk management and portfolio construction. Your product needs to be robust, have significant capacity and be unique and hard to duplicate. It alo needs to stand up to the rigorous due diligence of large investors. Sounds scary? Not to us.
- Product expansion:
What should your next product be? When should you roll it out? How should you roll it out? Product expansion should be an important part of your growth strategy but it needs to be implemented in a careful and strategic manner so as not to divert your primary focus but still help you to maximize the value of your firm.
- Pricing:
Product pricing is one of the most difficult and overlooked challenges that you will face. Forget 2 and 20. That’s gone with the POTS line. Investors will now compare you to passive investments and so we will have to develop a pricing and liquidity strategy that’s consistent with the instruments you trade, the value you provide and the distribution strategy you choose. Your product pricing strategy is very important and can be quite difficult.
- Distribution:
We help you determine the best distribution strategy and then find, negotiate and help implement those elusive distribution deals. Distribution is often one of the most overlooked and forgotten pieces of asset management strategy. Not with us.
- Compliance:
Compliance has become one of the most important pieces of building a successful asset management firm and can be prohibitively expensive. We love risk management and compliance. (Yes, read that again, we mean it.) We will work with you to ensure that you have the level of compliance that your investors demand and that risk management will be part of your DNA like it’s part of ours. Then everything becomes simple.
- Track record:
We will help you create a live audited track record, one that has real credibility with investors. Sounds easy? Well, not all track records carry the same weight. We want a GIPS compliant live track record that is consistent with your back tests, demonstrates that the strategy can accommodate significant AUM without dampening returns, and most importantly, has the correct checks and balances in place. For instance, it should be managed in a separately managed account with an independent broker/dealer, independent custodian, independent administrator with a clearly defined pricing policy, independent big 4 audit, etc.
- Operations. This is broad and may include:
- In-the-trench operations (such as making sure the trades are executed smoothly and trade breaks are dealt with quickly and efficiently, etc.)
- Helping you with the legal process (we have negotiated special rates for your legal docs, audits etc.)
- Raising AUM:
This is probably the foremost question in the manager’s mind and you’re right: it is one of the most important success factors for an asset management firm. But we have some bad news for you, there is no magic genie that can rain AUM. Gone are the days when a good 6 month track record can magically raise half a billion dollars. We’re living in a post 2008, post Madoff, anti active manager world. Don’t forget that the type and quality of your investors are just as important as AUM. We want to help build your long term success. The investors that are now running toward you the fastest, often leave first. (They are generally the ones chasing returns and will dump you at the first hiccup and please believe us when we say, you will have a hiccup or two.)
What Are We Looking For?
- Unique and innovative investment philosophy and process. We have seen too many “me too” strategies and that’s not what we’re looking for.
- Disciplined and rigorous approach
- Preferably quantitative strategies with certain traits:
- Truly unique, clear competitive advantage (are we repeating ourselves?)
- Can be leveraged into a range of products. We’re looking for a platform approach that can be utilized in many markets with many types of securities. The one problem we like is having to choose which is the best first product to go with.
- Open and honest principals. This sounds too obvious right? Well actually, it’s probably the most important criterion. We need to understand what you do in order for us to decide if we can really help you and how we can help you. If you come to us with a great back test and then refuse to tell us much more, well, we’re not the right folks for you. As we said, we’ve never seen a bad back test. We have to convince ourselves that what you have is real and unique. We can’t predict your live trading results, but we need to have enough of an understanding to be as confident as you are that your investment strategy is truly compelling. So you have to be prepared to open up that kimono. Perhaps even opening it up more than you want to.
- Willingness to align incentives. We’re not a bargin. If we were, you wouldn’t be getting our level of experience and our dedication. It’s that simple.
How Are We Compensated?
We are compensated for our work through minority equity participation in your underlying investment firm along with a portion of your revenue. This ensures that our interests are aligned and we all succeed when we all do a good job of substantially growing your business.
We Love What We Do
Passion. Passion. Passion. We’re swimming in the stuff. We really love finding that elusive strategy and then working together to develop the next major asset management firm, one that has investment excellence at its core, sells multiple products into multiple markets and has a brand franchise second to none. We are on a mission. Come join us.