Van Eyk outsources for wider research reach
By Michael Bailey
VanEyk Research has forged two new research alliances and is finalising a third, as it fills in gaps on its ‘irate’ online investment rating tool.
Aegis Equities Research will provide qualitative research on the top 200 Australian companies, as well as recommend structured products such as collateralised debt obligations.
Van Eyk director Mark Thomas said clients had requested a qualitative complement to van Eyk’s quantitative stock rating system.
Aegis’ recommendations on one-off structured products, such as Macquarie Generator Notes, will also be adopted by van Eyk.
Meanwhile, van Eyk has enlisted some outside help in researching agribusiness schemes, one of the first asset classes it produced ratings on.
It will take a research feed from Melbourne-based Adviser Edge, a specialist agribusiness assessor that aims to cover 90 per cent of the new agribusiness projects put forward in 2005.
Van Eyk only ever had the resources to rate a few schemes a year, and, according to Thomas, it had emerged as a “product gap” in irate.
“We will now be using Adviser Edge’s research recommendations as a primary filter and then overlay our own top-down sector views.”
Thomas said the only projects to pass through the “primary filter” would be those rated four stars or above on Adviser Edge’s five-star rating system, which looks at the merits of an individual project, as well as the commodity market in which it operates.
It is understood that both Aegis and Adviser Edge, which charge companies to be rated, will pay van Eyk a cut of that fee in return for allowing their research to reach a wider financial planning audience.
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