European Asset Managers Increasingly Turn to eVestment's Omni to Build Brands, Grow AUM

LONDON, Oct. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Global institutional investment data and analytics firm eVestment has signed six new European clients in the past three months to the company's Omni solution. This increased adoption by new Omni users highlights continental European asset managers' increased desire for a global online presence as database use increases substantially and managers seek to maximize exposure to institutional investors and their consultants during database "shadow searches" to grow assets under management (AUM).

The six new clients are Sydbank, Jyske and Carnegie Asset Management of Denmark; Berenberg of Germany; SCOR Investment Partners of France; and Security KAG of Austria. Each firm's asset management division will use eVestment's Omni solution to ensure fast, accurate and complete updates to the eVestment database and other databases serving the institutional investment market. This is crucial to asset managers looking to grow institutional AUM as so-called "shadow searches" increasingly replace traditional request for proposals (RFP) in Europe and around the world. 

A "shadow search" is a search where an investor or consultant reviews asset managers via databases like eVestment to find managers who meet criteria for a new mandate. In a shadow search, managers don't even know they are being reviewed or what criteria they are being reviewed against, highlighting the importance for asset managers to update databases completely and in a timely manner.

With a shadow search, an investor or consultant will whittle a list of several hundred potential asset managers down to perhaps three or four managers they choose to vet in person prior to awarding a new mandate. This is much smaller than the 20 or 30 managers who might be asked to participate in a traditional RFP process. And this process can happen much faster and more efficiently than a traditional RFP process.

"Having a robust online profile and presence on leading industry databases is important for our group's efforts to showcase our abilities – you need to be seen everywhere," said Christian Farø at Sydbank, one of eVestment's newest Omni clients. "Omni is an efficient and cost-effective way to ensure our updates are completed in a timely manner so we can focus on other strategic aspects of our business."

"As shadow searches take off, asset managers increasingly realize the importance of industry databases, in comparison to solely relying on building relationships to drive growth," said Christophe Frerebeau, eVestment's head of Europe, Middle East and Africa operations. "Missing key information and being automatically excluded from consideration by the investors and consultants conducting the searches has a major negative impact on winning investment mandates and growing AUM. eVestment's Omni solution ensures asset managers showcase themselves in the best possible light on the eVestment database and other top industry databases."

While many asset managers assume investors and consultants are only or primarily searching for performance figures, recent activity on the eVestment database proves that assumption to be false.

Searches for asset managers have jumped 500% in the past five years on eVestment, while searches for performance-oriented criteria have declined 50% in that time frame – a function of investors' and consultants' increased interest in other attributes or strategies they are researching. Other frequently searched fields include ESG strategies, firm ownership, current number of holdings, use of active share, firm headquarters, investment focus and key professional background. An asset manager who is not updating databases with these and other most-searched items will miss many opportunities.

For more information about eVestment's Omni solution, please click here.

About eVestment

eVestment provides a flexible suite of easy-to-use, cloud-based solutions to help the institutional investing community identify and capitalize on global investment trends, better select and monitor investment managers and more successfully enable asset managers to market their funds worldwide. eVestment's mission is to help make smart money smarter. 

SOURCE eVestment

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http://www.evestment.com