van Eyk redundancies mark shift to alternatives
| Rate the Raters 2012 |
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One area van Eyk improved on in 2011 was the quality of its personnel.
But the unveiling of the new strategy which will see the researcher focus more on the alternatives sector has seen three redundancies and another analyst departing the firm voluntarily.
In a recent interview with Money Management, van Eyk Research chief executive officer Mark Thomas said the three analysts leaving the company were mostly focusing on the administrative, data collection and compilation side of research, which will now be outsourced to offshore firms.
While the effects of this move – if any – will only be evident in next year’s Rate the Raters survey, van Eyk’s rating in this area did deteriorate slightly over the past 12 months.
Around 32 per cent of respondents rated them ‘above average’ (down from 55 per cent in 2011) and 10 per cent of fund managers surveyed said they were ‘below average’ – up from 5 per cent last year.
The change in strategy for van Eyk Research also came as a response to tougher conditions facing the sector.
Developed market equities now make up only a quarter of its strategic asset allocation (down from 60 per cent in 2007), which Thomas said required a realignment of van Eyk’s resources.
The researcher was spending seven or eight months every year on two big reviews in areas where van Eyk only had 25 per cent allocation.
The new strategy would allow for a greater focus on fund managers willing to take active risks, which means van Eyk will drop up to 60 names off its list to make room for funds aligned with its focus, Thomas said.
The research house fared relatively well in areas such as research methodology and feedback, but fund managers were divided on questions such as fairness of the research provided and transparency.
It should also be noted that van Eyk operates a subscriber-only remuneration model and is not taking payments for research conducted internally.
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