Need for marketing partners as regulation increases

Submitted 21/04/2021 - 12:55pm -

Aravis Capital: Best Third Party Marketing Firm – Given the increase in regulation and the resulting extenuated due diligence process, fund raising is now taking longer. In this context, the need for third party fund marketing firms is felt more acutely, even by smaller, niche asset managers.

“In the US third party fund marketing has become a respected and accepted part of the institutional asset raising process. In Europe, this is not as well developed. However, market forces mean this is changing,” notes James Alexander (pictured), co-founder and head of distribution, Aravis Capital.

After the financial crisis, Alexander and his team believed the due diligence process would take a lot longer and the lead time for any allocator to invest in a fund would be extended: “This did happen, coupled with a sharp increase in the amount of regulation around due diligence requirements. By and large, this means even a small, niche asset manager would recognise the assistance a third-party fund marketer can provide in terms of client relationship management, client identification and the process of actually raising assets.”

As a marketing firm which relies heavily on travel and face to face meetings, Aravis Capital adapted quickly to the new state of affairs: “We actually feel energised by the changes we made in our move to digital platforms. We have completely overhauled our digital footprint and the way we distribute information,” Alexander highlights.

He believes the firm differentiates itself through the level of service it provides clients: “We’ve invested heavily to make sure the quality of our data is high. We also invested in our own research department to make sure we can add value to both the managers we represent and for the allocators that look at the products that they manage.

“We want to continue giving this high level of service to the fund managers and allocators we work for. As things unfold during the year, we will continue to add value and I’ll be pleased to continue growing our team as we need to, in order to take advantage of all the opportunities available.”

Aravis Capital has expanded its offering, having started with a focus on long-only equity products and branching out into alternatives in the last couple of years. “We set up our service alternatives with a view to taking advantage of the opportunities in the space. Given the shifts taking place in the market, these could come sooner rather than later as rising inflation and rising interest rates become a possibility. We suspect investors will be looking for less correlation with equity markets over the coming years and hope we’re well placed to take advantage of that,” observes Alexander.

In recent news, Hong Kong-based asset manager FountainCap announced the launch of an all-cap China equity fund in a UCITS format. The fund will be built under the Dublin domiciled Aravis Funds (Ireland) ICAV.

Aravis is currently in discussions with a small group of institutions to launch the seed share classes and to bring the fund up to USD100 million critical mass within the first 90 days. 

James Alexander, Executive Director, Aravis Capital
James Alexander co-founded Aravis Capital in 2010 and is the Head of the Distribution team. Before co-founding Aravis, James spent seven years with Atlantis Investment Management, where he was the Marketing Director. James has 30 years’ experience specialising in financial product sales in institutional equities and investment management in the UK, Thailand and Hong Kong. Previous employers include Morgan Grenfell Investment Management, W.I. Carr, BZW and Nomura.

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