Investment Manager Research for Global Investors Seeking Alpha

Investment managers play a crucial role in helping global investors achieve their financial goals. They provide valuable insights and expertise to navigate complex markets and make informed investment decisions.

For instance, a study found that top-performing investment managers outperformed their benchmarks by 3.5% per annum over a 5-year period. This highlights the importance of selecting the right investment manager for your portfolio.

Investors seeking alpha can benefit from conducting thorough research on investment managers. This includes evaluating their track record, investment strategy, and risk management practices.

A thorough evaluation of an investment manager's performance can help investors identify potential biases and inconsistencies in their strategy.

A unique perspective: Axa Investment Managers

Our team of investment researchers has over 135 dedicated professionals worldwide, allowing us to dive deep into the disciplines and seek the competitive edge of investment managers. This extensive team enables us to handle the investment manager research so you have more time to focus on client service and development.

A fresh viewpoint: Managed Team

We use a highly rigorous and consistent research framework that helps enable objective and consistent comparison. Our framework assesses the strength of a manager's ability to generate value-adding investment ideas, their effectiveness in translating these ideas into portfolio weightings, and the value-add given back in the form of transaction costs and opportunity costs.

Our research process is fundamental, forward-looking, and research-intensive, every step building on a deep understanding of the investment strategies covered. We assess each investment strategy's capabilities in four areas: idea generation, portfolio construction, implementation, and business management.

Check this out: Cambridge Investment Research

Identifying Alpha requires a thoughtful approach.

Our research process at Mercer is fundamental, forward-looking, and research-intensive, building on a deep understanding of the investment strategies covered.

Active management seeks to generate repeatable excess return, but it's rare. Using an investment manager research process can enhance the probability of identifying alpha.

We focus on asset class and the characteristics of investment strategies that have been shown to enhance the probability of sustainable alpha generation, which can vary over time.

A fresh viewpoint: Investment Strategies for Hedge Fund Managers

A robust and consistent framework assesses each investment strategy's capabilities in four areas: idea generation, portfolio construction, implementation, and business management.

Knowing that there's no one-size-fits-all approach, we rely on our experience to help target relevant characteristics for a given investment manager research strategy.

Our process is designed to provide forward-looking insights that span the diversity of the global economy, allowing you to introduce new investment ideas to your clients.

Here are the four key areas we assess in our investment manager research:

Our team of experienced investment researchers has an average of years of experience, allowing us to provide in-depth analysis and insights that go beyond what's publicly available.

We handle the investment manager research so you have more time to focus on client service and development. This means you can focus on what matters most – building strong relationships with your clients.

With a global reach, we're able to meet investment managers in-person anywhere in the world, from New York to Sydney to Hong Kong and Singapore. This allows us to gain a deeper understanding of their strategies and capabilities.

Our research process is highly rigorous and consistent, enabling objective and consistent comparison of investment managers. We assess key factors such as a manager's ability to generate value-adding investment ideas.

We use innovative techniques that draw on our own technologies to find the managers you want – and screen out the ones you don’t. This helps cut out the noise and provides you with a clear view of the investment landscape.

Our team of 135 dedicated research professionals worldwide dive deep into the disciplines and seek the competitive edge of investment managers. This expertise is invaluable in helping you discover compelling leaders in the investment management space.

Here are the key characteristics we look for in a compelling investment manager:

By considering these factors, we can help you identify investment managers with a competitive advantage in 10 key categories. This includes areas such as global equities, credit, hedge funds, private equity, and impact investing.

Finding the right fund manager is crucial to a successful investment strategy. The best fund manager for you will depend on your individual portfolio needs.

We tailor our manager selection processes to ensure a good fit. This means presenting the fund managers who we think will meet your specific needs.

A senior consultant and manager of investment research for alternative assets is responsible for overseeing this process. They bring a wealth of knowledge and expertise to the table.

Ultimately, the goal is to find a fund manager who is a good match for your investment goals and risk tolerance.

Investors face a daunting task when it comes to choosing from over 25,000 investment managers. Most investors start by screening managers using quantitative methods, but these often identify the wrong managers, leading to an inefficient process.

Aapryl's Skill Screening Module offers a more efficient approach by isolating manager skill from market conditions. This proprietary methodology looks beyond past performance to identify a more persistent measure of manager skill.

Manager performance is not always a reliable indicator of future success. In fact, performance is often not persistent, but manager skill is.

Consider reading: Investment Performance

As we dive into the world of investment manager research, it's clear that emerging opportunities are abound. Fidelity's research suggests that 75% of investors consider ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) factors when making investment decisions.

Investors are increasingly looking for managers who can navigate these complex issues, and research from Morningstar shows that ESG-focused funds have seen significant growth in recent years. This trend is expected to continue, with 90% of investors planning to increase their ESG investments over the next five years.

By staying ahead of the curve and incorporating ESG factors into their research, investment managers can attract and retain top talent, improve their reputation, and ultimately drive long-term returns.

Related reading: Money Managers

Renewable infrastructure is an attractive opportunity for investors seeking reliable returns alongside wider ESG benefits.

Investors are increasingly turning to renewable infrastructure as a way to generate consistent returns while also contributing to a more sustainable future.

Redington, a leading investment company, highlights the potential of renewable infrastructure in their article.

The construction recruitment industry, where one of the authors previously worked, is also relevant to this topic.

The demand for infrastructure investment in emerging markets is expected to reach $1 trillion by 2025, with private investors playing a crucial role in bridging the funding gap.

Private investors are eager to tap into the growing infrastructure market in emerging countries, but they face significant challenges in accessing these opportunities.

According to a report, the global infrastructure investment gap is estimated to be around $15 trillion by 2040, with emerging markets accounting for a significant portion of this gap.

Private investors can benefit from investing in emerging market infrastructure debt, which offers attractive yields and diversification benefits.

The average yield on emerging market infrastructure debt is around 6-7%, which is higher than traditional fixed income investments.

Investors can consider investing in infrastructure debt funds or platforms that specialize in emerging market investments.

These platforms often have experienced teams and local knowledge, which can help navigate the complexities of investing in emerging markets.

By investing in emerging market infrastructure debt, private investors can play a vital role in supporting the development of critical infrastructure projects in these countries.

Related reading: Private Wealth Management Firm

We're a European member of the Global Investment Research Alliance, giving us access to research on investment managers and markets from around the world.

Our research covers all major asset classes in public and private markets, providing a comprehensive understanding of global investment opportunities.

With our global reach, we can tap into research from top investment managers and markets, giving our clients a competitive edge in the investment world.

Here's an interesting read: Global Assets under Management

MercerInsight is a powerful tool for investment manager research, providing access to insights and analytics on over 6,700 managers and 35,000 strategies.

It's a cloud-based platform that's easy to use, making it a great resource for manager selection teams at pension plans, endowments, insurance companies, and financial intermediaries.

MercerInsight offers global, extensive coverage of the investment strategies available to institutional investors, allowing you to view quantitative analysis on performance and holdings data.

Manager ratings from Mercer's global manager research boutiques are also available, giving you a comprehensive view of investment managers.

Investment managers can use MercerInsight to assess their product positioning in the institutional marketplace, with access to performance analytics and investor search activity.

The platform provides the intelligence you need to make informed decisions about your investment strategies.

A different take: Apollo Global Management Assets under Management

Our proprietary methodology allows you to predict future outperformance more accurately than traditional skill screening tools. This means you can make more informed decisions about which investment managers to work with.

By incorporating predictive statistics such as our Opportunity Score, you can get a more complete picture of a manager's potential for success. The Opportunity Score is similar to Active Share, and it helps you identify managers who are likely to outperform.

To save time and focus on the most promising managers, our approach helps you identify the characteristics most correlated with persistent skill. This means you can spend less time screening and more time evaluating the managers who are most likely to deliver.

Here are some key benefits of our approach: