The former head of investment funds and the ex-head of European exchange-traded and structured funds at stock exchange operator Euronext have teamed up to launch an independent European research platform, according to industry magazine The TRADE.
ResearchPool, founded by James Woodley and Pedro Fernandes, is an attempt to fill a niche the two see as being left by the 2008 financial crisis and the mass layoffs in the industry, which they say left a dearth of research.
ResearchPool will launch in the coming months to serve small and medium-sized asset managers, hedge funds and family offices that are having trouble finding enough research to fit their needs, the publication reports, citing ResearchPool’s founders. They say the number of analysts fell after the financial crisis, affecting the amount of research available and leaving asset managers unsure how they can monitor the quality of the research they pay for.
‘Pedro and I both worked at Euronext and decided to leave at the end of last year,’ The TRADE cites Woodley as saying in an interview. ‘At the moment, research aggregation is done by bodies like Bloomberg, Reuters or those with a chunky subscription mode, so it is available to only the largest institutions in the marketplace.’
Woodley says smaller institutions, those without multiple broker accounts and retail investors are now lacking in research. He says he and Fernandes plan to fill that niche. He compares his business model with that of Amazon.
‘We will get paid only if a transaction takes place – a small transaction fee of 75p ($1.16) per download plus a commission of 15 percent on whatever the price is set at,’ Woodley adds in the interview.
