Helping investors get an edge...

A hedge fund wanted to protect a large position in a quickly expanding food chain. Failure to meet earnings and sales expectations would be a major blow to the stock.

• The client needed metrics to forewarn of any significant changes in performance.
• We worked with the client to monitor store traffic at different locations across the US. Over a series of months our researchers watched stores and built a view of store traffic, which helped us assess same-store sale movements.
• This forward-looking barometer proved very helpful at indicating whether sales expectations would be met.

Following the events of 9/11 we were asked by a real estate developer to look at the economic basis of the Manhattan residential real estate market.

• We felt that house price indices that are usually used to measure real estate values insufficiently captured developments in this unusual market and instead located a data series of square foot prices stretching back to 1979 that had never been used in an economic review.
• These data, from Miller Samuel, New York’s largest real estate valuations appraiser, provided a unique historical perspective on the market.
• Combined with rigorous analysis we arrived at the contrarian position that in late 2001 real estate values were undervalued.
• Each year since we have forecast price movements for condos and coops and for every year we have been directionally correct; most years our forecasts have been very close to outturn movements.

Before investing in a small beverage company a VC wanted assurance on a new product’s sales potential.

• We pulled together information from a range of sources – monitoring buyers at trial locations, speaking to distributors and store owners as well as consumers – and were able to forecast strong uptake of the new release.
• Our forecasts proved correct and helped to underpin the financial security of the firm and the VCs investment in it.

Please give us a call if you would like to discuss how we can help you. John Marchant can be reached on +1 212 866 4680, and Roger Sharp on +44 8703 505 360 (or contact us online).