“When I look back at what we’ve been able to accomplish, 2017 was a pivotal year for us in terms of establishing our unique identity,” says Jeffrey Solomon, CEO of Cowen, of which Cowen Prime Services is a core division.
“During 2017, we unveiled our new firm brand identity which highlights our commitment to ‘outperform’ in all of our business endeavours. It crystallises our mission at Cowen: To advise and connect aspirational users and providers of capital to help both of them outperform.”
In an investing world that is split between those who engage in active investing and those who engage in passive investing, Cowen is 100 per cent focused on those who believe in the value of active investing.
“Our brand concept of helping people to outperform emanates from the idea that everything we do as an organisation has to be exceptional because the pressure on active managers to outperform passive managers has never been greater,” says Solomon.
Cowen has made some strategic decisions to further enhance its prime brokerage business, including its acquisition of Convergex in 2017 and expanding its US and international prime services capabilities through Cowen International Limited.
“Being named ‘Best Global Prime Broker’ is further validation that we are building out from our core strengths and focusing on the areas where we have domain expertise,” explains Solomon.
Equity execution and research are additional areas where Cowen has domain expertise.
“In a post-MiFID II world, sell side firms have to be excellent in both research and trade execution in order to garner market share. We have long been recognised as a premier research brand. However, following our acquisition of Convergex, we are now one of the largest independent non-conflicted equity execution firms on the Street. There are few organisations like us that emphasise sophisticated research as well as provide innovative market liquidity solutions for clients on a non-conflicted basis,” explains Solomon.
During 2017, Cowen’s research reports were read over 4.2 million times and the team published over 170,000 pages of research. It currently has over 900 companies under coverage and conducted over 7,300 analyst meetings with clients throughout the year.
These stats give some indication as to how much of a quest clients are on to find alpha. They are aggregating their time with firms like Cowen that specialise in industry areas of expertise, such as healthcare, technology, consumer, energy and industrials.
“You need to be able to help clients make better investment decisions more quickly,” adds Solomon. “There is so much alpha to be generated from data and data analytics. Not only do we have the ability to access some unique data sets but we can also query those data sets to enable managers to cut through the noise.”
According to Solomon, from a cultural perspective, three character traits define the Cowen employee: vision, tenacity and empathy.
“Cowen is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. That kind of longevity is quite an accomplishment in our industry. I believe that we have persevered because of our vision to sense opportunities, anticipate new challenges and constantly innovate. Certainly, I don’t think we have faced an environment where we need to be more tenacious than we do today. From an empathy perspective, when we walk in the shoes of our clients we are able to find the right solutions for their particular circumstances,” says Solomon.
On winning this year’s award, he concludes: “It is testament to the fact that Cowen has never been in a better position to help its prime brokerage clients navigate the changing markets.”
