Van Eyk travelling well after crisis

Van Eyk Research has emerged well from the global financial crisis and is in good shape financially, according to managing director Mark Thomas.

“We are travelling quite well,” Thomas told van Eyk’s seventh annual conference.

“A lot of people say that research businesses don’t make money. Well, we’re not making a lot of money at the moment. We hope to make some more money but we are travelling well versus our budgets,” he said.

“Like all organisations we tighten belts, we’ve had a head count freeze on but we’ve relaxed that in recent times. We’re starting to hire again, we’ve hired a couple of new analysts and we’ve got a couple more places that we’re looking to fill. Van Eyk is on the move.”

Van Eyk had signed a number of new clients recently, including a couple of top 100 clients and “a whole lot” of boutiques, Thomas said. Van Eyk had also recently expanded into the New Zealand market covering about 49 managers for a client, which he said had been “an enormous task”.

Van Eyk had an independent approach and would therefore not start charging for ratings even though that would be an easy way to add some more money to the coffers, Thomas added.

“We believe that that does compromise our position,” he said. “It’s not that the people doing the ratings are conflicted, it’s more to do with who you choose to be within your universe.”