Friday, March 13th, 2009
Former Bear Stearns Analyst Joins Research Outsourcing Co
Dow Jones
13 March 2009
By Jessica Papini
Former Bear Stearns health-care analyst Steve Unger joined Research Edge, a research outsourcing company, last week.
Unger is rolling out health-care coverage for the company, along with Thomas Tobin, next week. Tobin, who joined Research Edge from Dawson-Herman Capital Management last year, has been in the process of setting up the infrastructure.
Research Edge, based in New Haven, Conn., is one of several new boutique research firms that operate under a non-traditional business model. Rather than producing research on topics of its choice and looking for buyers, Research Edge and similar companies generate investment ideas and research companies and topics at the request of institutional investors.
Analysts at Research Edge do not place ratings or price targets on companies they cover, and research is customized based on each client’s request.
“There is a lot more time for me to focus on high quality, in-depth research,” Unger said. Also, the research is not broadly distributed.
Unger worked at Bear Stearns for over 10 years, prior to the bank’s fire-sale acquisition by JPMorgan Chase & Co. He most recently was at Balyasny Asset Management for five months.
Unger will cover 10 companies at first, but said he has the ability to cover up to 50 companies under the new firm’s research model.
Research Edge plans to hire analysts for existing sectors and add new sector coverage as well. The company has grown over the last year from two employees to 30.
More and more buy-side firms are outsourcing research. Investment banks and hedge funds have laid off equity research staff, and mutual fund managers may follow.
One newcomer to outsourced research is William Pecoriello, a longtime consumer staples analyst at Morgan Stanley, who is in the midst of launching Consumer Edge Research.
Over the past year, David Malpass, former chief economist at Bear Stearns, founded Encima Global, an economic research and consulting firm that provides economic, political, and market insights to clients. John Ryding and Conrad DeQuadros, both from Bear Stearns, founded RDQ Economics, a global macroeconomic research company. Wolfe Research, a research company dedicated to macro and freight transportation research, was founded by Ed Wolfe, who worked at Bear for 10 years.
An early customized-research firm was Telsey Advisory Group. Dana Telsey, who left Bear in 2006, founded Telsey, an equity research and consulting firm focused solely on the consumer sector, including retail and apparel companies, restaurants and the gaming industry.
