Interfax-CEA Launches Project to Assess Asset Managing Companies

The Interfax-Center for Economic Analysis (Interfax-CEA), a division of Interfax Information Services Group, has announced that it has launched a new project, Asset Management in Russia, a program to assess asset managing companies on the basis of their quantitative and qualitative performance.

"The rapid development of the asset management market and the fast growth of the number of managing companies have generated investor demand for independent assessments of the quality of asset management. However, in Russia products of this kind are far below Western standards, and their methodology is usually based on quantitative criteria alone. Assessments that our Center has begun to make seek to answer what is the main question for investors, whether a specific managing company can continue to earn money for its clients," said the General director of Interfax-CEA, Mikhail Matovnikov.

"We expect that the new analytical product of Interfax-CEA will be in demand both among market participants who need a topnotch marketing instrument and among investors, who will be able to use these assessments in their decision making," he said.

Investors and market participants may get detailed information about the methodology of the Asset Management in Russia project from the http://www.amrussia.ru/ website, a new Interfax-CEA facility. This site offers information on all segments of the asset management market - management of personal, institutional and corporate assets and management of pension funds.

The site carries reports on management assessments of managing companies and mutual funds, analytical studies of the asset management market, detailed information on market participants, news, and comparisons of companies and funds based on financial and other criteria.

Assessment methods developed by Interfax-CEA and based on analyses of international experience differ seriously from other products available in the Russian market. The majority of Russian managing companies and mutual funds have only been around for a short time, and this means that purely quantitative methods based on statistical analyses of asset price dynamics are inadequate. Quite often, managerial success is the result of a single solution and does not mean that all future management will be just as successful.

The methodology of Interfax-CEA involves an independent in-depth analysis of a managing company and assets managed by it and is designed to provide investors with information on a company and its products that is as complete and accurate as possible.

Analysis of a managing company focuses on institutional and organizational characteristics that enable the company to bring income to the investors. In particular, assessments are made of the reliability of a managing company, its standard of organization of the investment process, its management of operational and infrastructural risks (including risks that go with the use of the services of a special depositary, special registrar, and a bank), and the standard of service it offers its clients.

Assessment of how profitable it is to put mutual fund shares under the management of a company is based on a high variety of investment strategies and styles offered by this company to investors, takes account quantitative criteria of its asset management, the investment strategy of the fund, infrastructural risks and risks stemming from the fund‘s structure and the standard of service for investors.

A managing company being assessed by Interfax-CEA must closely cooperate with the Center, which includes disclosing confidential information for Interfax-CEA. Interfax-CEA monitors the company‘s business and its managerial performance in order to give investors an immediate report on any changes that occur in the company.

*** Interfax-CEA issues regular statistical and analytical products on various financial markets in Russia and other members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and reports activities by Russian institutional investors. The products of Interfax-CEA include daily forecasts and reports on various financial markets, rankings of Russian banks and insurance companies under the general heading of Interfax 100 and rankings of banks and insurers in CIS countries under the general heading of Interfax 1000.

Interfax Corporate News Agency (Interfax-CNA), a specialized analytical service in the Group, has developed SPARK (a Russian acronym for System of Professional Analysis of Markets and Companies), Russia‘s largest news and analysis database on companies, which provides information on all companies registered in Russia.