Investment Consulting
We can help you solve pressing problems in a number of key areas of portfolio management, including investment strategy and process, beta and tail risk, mitigating the low returns in fixed income, passive versus active manager selection, risk management, derivative usage, etc.
Asset Owners
Asset owners, including pension funds, insurance companies, endowments, and family offices face unprecedented return and risk challenges. Aimed at improving investment outcomes, our expertise covers investment strategy, tactical and strategic asset allocation, choice of investment managers, active versus passive, hedging, ESG, and geographic and sector risk.
Investment Banks and Market Makers
With a unique combination of executive experience from both the Buy-side and Sell-side, we have deep expertise in subject areas including interest rates, credit, currency, emerging markets, and structured finance. At the same time, as former clients of the sell side, we have a unique perspective on how the research, trading, liquidity, counterparty, derivatives, risk and quantitative needs of the buy side community are evolving. Let us help you become more effective!
Central Banks and Sovereign Wealth Funds
We help central banks and sovereign wealth funds grapple with the unprecedented risks in today’s investment landscape, including an array of major macro risks, currency risk, diminished yields and returns, increased correlations, and asset-liability mismatches. Other challenges include advice on manager selection, derivatives usage, and the management of reserves against market and tail risk scenarios.
Asset Managers
We help asset managers face the industry’s unprecedented challenges. With 50+ years of expertise in the industry, we help our clients overcome compression in yields, the challenges of consistent alpha generation, risk management, technological obsolescence, and help them to incorporate data science and AI/ML into human-intensive investment processes.
Asset Owners
Global macro, market and investment strategy: Global market prospects, currency, interest rate, and credit investing, global asset management, global macro themes, macroeconomics
Asset allocation- process, methodology, technology, and attribution. Defining and navigating the various asset allocation trade offs, such as: domestic vs global, private vs public, safe vs. risky, etc.
Active vs passive: where does one make sense vs the other? Defining benchmarks and IMAs to minimize bad incentives for external managers
FX exposure hedging, active returns, and risk management, FX mismatches vs liabilities
Manager evaluation and selection - developing better internal processes and metrics
In-house vs. External management - deciding what aspects of poto outsource
Emerging markets allocation : where do EM equities, currency, $ Sovereign, Corporate bonds, and domestic debt fit into portfolio allocations? What’s the best way to combine exposure and should they be internally or externally managed?
ESG: Defining ESG policy, committee, process, and how ESG and credit ratings should interact. Define what stewardship should mean, for active vs passive products
Risk measurement and management - benchmarking against best practices and updating systems. Measurement of systematic and idiosyncratic risks. Pro cyclical, a cyclical and anti cyclical risk management practices, and reducing return drag from risk management. Aggregating multiple data sources. Selecting vendors and systems.
Central Banks and Sovereign Wealth Funds
Organizational strategy: Strategy and planning, Investment charter, mission, objectives, team leadership, project staffing, talent acquisition and retention, organizational and process change and innovation
Global macro, market and investment strategy: Global market prospects, currency, interest rate, and credit investing, global asset management, global macro themes, macroeconomics
Asset management: Central bank reserve management, sovereign wealth fund management, investment strategy, asset allocation and asset-liability management
External Relationships: Relationships with asset managers, investment banks, consultants, brokers, multilateral agencies (e.g IMF), investment management agreements, metrics for asset manager performance, benchmark selection, manager and investment bank selection, performance measures and comparisons
Quantitative Modeling: Fixed income, interest rates, structured finance, credit, currencies, equities, volatility, portfolio, benchmark and active risk/performance measures, alpha vs beta
Risk Management: Risk models/measurement, stress tests, credit, securities/ asset classes/ portfolios, active, passive, long/short, model risk, etc.
Derivatives: Hedging, Structuring, alpha generation, modeling and risk, single name, index and portfolio, interest rate, credit, structured finance, and currency.
Investment Banks and Market Makers
Knowledge and expertise: interest rates, credit, and currency markets
Fixed income business strategy: Organizational strategy, staffing and planning, value addition, team leadership, talent acquisition and retention, organizational and process, change and innovation
Global macro, market and investment strategy: Global market prospects, currency, interest rate, and credit investing, global asset management, global macro themes, macroeconomics
Global rates: G10 and EM rates trading, modeling and risk management
Global credit: Corporate, sovereign, and structured finance debt trading, modeling, and risk management
Emerging Markets: Building sell side franchise in EM external and domestic debt and FX, EM research, market making, trading, and debt capital markets.
Foreign exchange: Global and EM currency trading, modeling, risk.
Quantitative Modeling: Fixed income, interest rates, structured finance, credit, currencies, equities, volatility, portfolio, benchmark and active risk/performance measures, alpha vs beta
Risk Management: Risk models/measurement, stress tests, credit, securities/ asset classes/ portfolios, active, passive, long/short, model risk, etc.
Derivatives: Hedging, Structuring, alpha generation, modeling and risk, single name, index and portfolio, interest rate, credit, structured finance, and currency.
Asset Managers
Dealing with the threat of passive and compressing fees. Replacing core with specialty activities or streamlining core activities. How to evaluate/launch new products such as hedge funds or absolute return products, etc. Where to cut costs. Harnessing technology to reduce redundant and manual activities. Setting fee schedules to align better with asset owners
Integrating data science and quantitative methods into transactional decision making. Harnessing one’s own data. For example, use internally stored trade data to determine which existing clients to pitch a new product to or when to trade what instrument and with whom.
Integrating quantitative processes into portfolio construction and alpha generation. Separating alpha into beta and alpha. Who and what processes add value? Sizing active positions
Emerging markets expansion: Especially Asia. Onshore China. Selling global products to Asians, vs onshore products, vs APAC products. LatAm strategy, especially in Brazil, Chile, Mexico. Off shore centers such as Miami, HK, Singapore
ESG: Defining ESG policy, committee, process, and how ESG and credit ratings should interact. Define what stewardship should mean, for active vs passive products
Solutions : What capabilities are required to have a strategic partnership with clients? Requires thinking like an asset owner. Examples include ALM, Asset Allocation, and ESG
Risk management - benchmarking against best practices and updating systems. Pro cyclical, acyclical and anti-cyclical risk management practices, and reducing alpha drag from risk management. Selecting vendors and systems
Strategic and process changes in response to advances in Big Data availability and AI/ML
Separation, definition, and optimization of trade execution vs portfolio management functions