Archive for the ‘Investment Managers’ Category

More Black Eyes For Our Industry

Tuesday, April 13th, 2010

The financial services industry continues to get battered with bad publicity – last week saw the accelerated SEC/FINRA probes of bond funds at Morgan Keegan; today was news about Washington Mutual and their loan profile and a new name to most of us – Hudson Castle – an affiliate used by Lehman Brothers to shift investments off of its books.

The bad press also continues from Washington, where as financial reform is discussed, debated, and televised, the poor judgement and illegal actions of a few reflect poorly on the entire industry.  It is of course not nearly as news-worthy to focus on the vast majority of firms and individuals that don’t break the law. I am not sure about you, but the “Main Street” v “Wall Street” rhetoric has gotten really old!

My purpose here is not defend or judge these actions – but more so, since the tide of public opinion continues to flow against the industry, to suggest briefly how industry participants respond. The majority of industry participants do not engage in illegal activities and truly act in their clients best interest.

In this case the best defensive is offensive. If a client brings up these scandals to you – then it is probably too late. I recommend that you proactively contact clients to discuss the state of the industry and remind them of your standards and values – and remind them why they do business with you.

Clients will appreciate you taking the upfront approach, and being proactive will make you less susceptible to losing clients that for whatever reason begin to question you.

Posted in Advisors, General Interest, Investment Managers, Sponsors | No Comments »

Top Ten Ways to Cross-Market to Grow Assets

Thursday, April 8th, 2010

What are the best ways to deepen the client relationships that you currently have? How can you broaden your relationship with current clients – who should be your best referral sources?

10 – Give away what you used to sell

9 – Become part of your client’s community

8 – Have a consistent and identifiable brand

7 – Make sure that clients understand your value proposition

6 – Communicate, Communicate, Communicate

5 – Survey your clients

4 – Don’t try to be all things to all people

3 – Don’t over-commit

2 –  Listen – don’t talk!

1 – Push don’t pull

Posted in Advisors, General Interest, Investment Managers | No Comments »

The Importance of YOUR Brand

Tuesday, April 6th, 2010

We just released our new White Paper entitled “The Importance of YOUR Brand.” To quote from that paper:

Your brand is much more than a logo or the color of your marketing materials. Your brand is what you are to the marketplace and more importantly to your clients – it is your reputation and the value that you bring to clients and the reason that they do business with you. Viewed in this context, the importance of having an effective brand can’t be overemphasized.
 
A brand differentiates you from the competition and allows you to present your core value proposition. In fact, your brand and your reputation are interchangeable. You should invest in it and leverage it to grow your business.

Please click here to view the full PDF version.

We would love to hear your feedback.

Posted in Advisors, General Interest, Investment Managers | No Comments »

Investment Manager Merger Mania Set to Begin?

Friday, March 19th, 2010

It was announced earlier this week that two Boston-Based investment managers – Congress Asset Management and Prelude Asset Management – were set to merge (Boston-Based Asset Managers Combine Forces). The combined firm will have approximately $6.4 billion under management.

Intriguing is the question of whether this portends the beginning of a wave of mergers in the industry. Personally, I think that it does. It was almost exactly a year ago in fact that I wrote about this topic (see blog of March 7, 2009 – Crisis Hurts Small Managers Most). I guess my timing was a little off, but in retrospect it makes sense – firms wanted to give it more time following the economic meltdown before they considered alternatives and as the market rose last year so did optimism.

But we continue to operate in a very difficult economic environment, and I think it is inevitable that many investment management firms will see the benefit of merging – certainly from an operations point of view. But these synergies will also exist in other areas such as marketing and sales. Prelude had about $1.2 million in AUM at the time of the merger. As I predicted a year ago, it is the managers below $2 billion that are the most vulnerable. Here we are a year later – get ready to see a lot more announcements.

One last thought – one positive is that last year’s market rise (and accompanying rise in AUM) will probably save some jobs, as firms are feeling better than they were a year ago and are probably in better financial shape. But the overall rationale for merging remains.

Posted in Investment Managers | No Comments »

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