Our research follows a clearly defined, 6-step process. However, in contrast to some other research organisations, we combine this with the flexibility to adapt and bespoke our questioning of managers.
An initial engagement letter is sent to the multi-manager fund group outlining the types of information we will ask for, explaining what the fund group and manager can expect from us during our relationship with them and, what we expect them to do in return.
We gather detailed factual information about the fund management group’s organisational structure, its markets, business strategy and its products. We want to understand how the group supports its multi-manager proposition, the composition of the multi-manager team and how it measures its own success when making asset allocation and fund selection decisions.
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Performance characteristics, historical portfolio holdings data, market data, other quantitative information and trends are analysed to help us prepare for face to face meetings with fund managers and their supporting teams.
The fund manager(s), research analysts and supporting teams are interviewed during face to face meetings.
Our questioning combines portfolio specific issues that have been highlighted during our earlier analysis with our own comprehensive list of previously identified research topics.
We use a variety of other sources to inform and bespoke our questioning of each manager – including; economic papers, investment bulletins, conferences, video calls and conversations with other managers.
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Detailed notes from face to face meetings, evaluations of quantitative data, and information collected from pre-meeting questionnaires, are thoroughly reviewed, analysed, and brought together in a single Portfolio Review Document.
A highly flexible template format allows us to search, select and filter on different attributes and points of research across all the multi-manager funds in our data base – enabling us to cross reference and correlate particular points of interest.
The information held in the Portfolio Review Document is analysed and evaluated. Provided certain conditions are met funds under review are assigned to 8 Scopic Risk Categories using our unique Qualitative + Quantitative Risk Assessment process. A Report is then constructed combining the results of our research with our objective opinion.
Reports cover all of the following key research topics:
For more information please see Due Diligence Reports and Unique Risk Assessment.
