Meet our Head of Manager Research
Nick SamuelsHead of Manager Research
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2022 was an extremely busy year for the manager research team involving a slight change to our research process - so I thought I’d use this quarter’s water cooler chat to update you on the change.
So what did we change?
Towards the end of 2022, we made a slight change to our investment process, removing the need for a periodic refresh of a whole preferred list - these lists were typically updated every 18-24 months. Instead, we’ve moved to a "live" approach where we can be more nimble and look at new ideas on an ad-hoc basis. With more volatile markets creating new opportunities alongside an expanding client base with different needs, we felt this was a more appropriate way to approach manager research and selection. Everything else stays the same, including our ‘Red Radar’ process where we flag potential triggers at our preferred managers before they happen.
This year (as ever) we’re working on a number of areas. Liability-Driven Investment post the 2022 mini-budget will look different from how it used to, and having conducted a post-mortem there are a number of things for us to consider for clients in a world where collateral and liquidity needs will be higher. At the other end of the spectrum, Nature-Based Solutions are gathering interest across our client base – we’re finishing off a deep dive into this space that we will be putting the ideas and opportunities in front of interested clients in the coming months. Secondaries also look interesting, both private equity and private credit, and with the value factor making a comeback we expect more client interest in our risk premia and active equity managers as well.
Normal service will be resumed next quarter when I’ll hand it back to one of the team and let them talk through asset class research.