Securitor expands research team

Securitor has expanded its internal research team from seven to 13 over the past 12 months as it moves to take a greater responsibility for research in-house, with more growth likely over the next year.

“We’re always looking to grow — as the client numbers increase we’ll be looking to increase the research team over time,” said Piers Bolger, BTFG’s senior manager, research, at Securitor’s annual conference last week.

The recruitments to the team were both internal and external, according to Bolger, who said the size of the team was appropriate to the style and volume of the business, which does all of its structured investment work and risk management models internally.

BTFG is currently looking to increase the headcount in the direct equities side of its research business, which currently stands at two, to about four, he said.

BTFG still relies on external research, predominantly for the purpose of narrowing the universe of funds from about 1,500 to 135, according to Bolger.

“Then it’s up to the internal research team to do the hard yards around seeing those managers, putting the views to the investment committee and doing the [Approved Product Lists] and model portfolios around that,” he said.

BTFG’s head of practice management, Matt Englund, said it was important for BTFG to own the decision making process in-house on behalf of its advisers.

“We use quite a number of research houses across the industry to understand what the industry’s views are and what we want to do is add our own flavour to that piece in the managed funds world to make sure we’re taking a focus that’s appropriate for our clients. We wanted to make research practical, pragmatic and implementable, and we’ve spent the last 12 months doing that,” Englund said.