Zenith ranked top research house: Peter Lee Survey

A survey of 29 Australian equity fund managers conducted by independent research consultant Peter Lee Associates has ranked Zenith at number one with the highest ‘Research Relationship Strength Index’.

The 2017 survey asked participants to rank their perceptions and capabilities of the manager research firms they interact with.

The ‘Research Relationship Strength Index’ is a new metric that combines feedback across a set of evaluations to provide a single measure of relationship quality. The evaluations include: research house capabilities, team stability, credibility, depth of coverage, least conflicted, quality of interactions and other measures.

Zenith achieved the highest Index rating at 558 (ranking effectively =1st amongst the 6 firms evaluated).

The survey highlights sharp gains in perceptions of overall research capability for Zenith ― now ranking 1st. Zenith was also widely recognised for “undertaking the most thorough research and reporting in the most independent manner”.

David Wright, Zenith Managing Partner said “We are delighted to be recognised by this independent survey for the quality and approach of our research. We believe that having high quality and transparent engagement with fund managers is a building block to delivering a competitive edge in our research insights to financial advisers.”

Peter Lee Associates Managing Director Sandhya Chand said “our survey differs somewhat in that it aims to provide a single statistical measure of research capability. In this year’s result we noted a convergence in perceptions of capability across the 5 most widely evaluated firms ― but interestingly, greater variation among large investors.”

The Peter Lee Associates Survey of Research Houses

Peter Lee Associates is a consultant established in the 1980’s (as Financial Products Research Group) that conducts the survey on behalf of institutional investors.

Relationship Strength Index Summary

The Relationship Strength Index (RSI) reflects all of the qualitative scores for a financial service provider (FSP) in a single number. This number is a statistical combination of the clients’ evaluations of their FSPs, shown on a scale from 0 to 1,000, with a mean score of 500 and a standard deviation of 166.67. The Relationship Strength Index displays the relative positions of competitors and the distribution of relationships.

Methodology

• Organise all of the client’s responses into a data matrix where each column contains a qualitative question and each row contains a client’s responses to all questions about one of their FSPs.
• Normalise the scalar data at respondent level to remove bias from ‘hard’ or ‘soft’ evaluators.
• Calculate the relationship quality for every client’s evaluations of FSPs.
• Normalise and re-compute scores to the Relationship Strength Index scale (0 to 1,000).

Strength of Relationship Groups

The Relationship Strength Index scores are then classified into five groups. These groups are comprised of approximately 10%, 20%, 40%, 20% and 10% of the client-FSP relationships and are labelled: Outstanding, Above Average, Average, Marginal and Low, respectively. The cut-points are approximately 800, 600, 400 and 330 on the scale (0 to 1,000).

For further information about the Survey please visit: https://www.peterleeassociates.com.au/