U.S. money managers flooded with investment research products have another way to filter through the pile and receive only the research they want.
StreamVPN Ltd., a London-based firm that has been offering such a filter to European institutional investors since early 2003, has launched its flagship service, called Alpha Network, in the United States.
Alpha Network provides a customized filter that allows money managers to set screening parameters, identifying specific sell-side firms and individuals and creating other filters such as focus industries, market cap, geographic location and long or short.
Sell-side brokers input research that meets the money managers' criteria through a web-based private network that tracks the performance of those research ideas — providing a basis for allocating commissions based on value added from the research.
"What our service provides the buy-side with is an effective tool to really assess the real value of the research from the sell side," said Erik Wastlund, StreamVPN's co-founder and managing director in North America, in an interview. "Also, it gives them a tool to fully disclose to their investors what they're paying for. It helps them acquire research in a more effective way and pay for that research in a more effective way and be able to disclose it."
