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Anchin: Best Tax Advisory

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This year’s winner of Best Tax Advisory, Anchin, prides itself on focusing on the needs of its clients. Jeffrey Rosenthal, Leader of Anchin’s Financial Services Practice, says: “Tax is very important to many of our clients, but tax planning can be traumatic because of changes in the law. We’re very proactive when it comes to reaching out to our clients, and we educate them to recognise issues that might be important for them.” 

Over the last year, Anchin has seen that with volatility comes opportunity and that managers have been able to take advantage of these swings in the market. Rosenthal notes that this has been particularly advantageous to start-ups, who form a significant part of the firm’s business. Further, start-up costs are now lower due to a declining need for large physical offices from the outset. 

“Capital raising has always been an issue, and at the onset of Covid it was even more difficult because most seeders and investors want to come in and kick the tires,” Rosenthal says. “However, I think it’s matured a little bit over the last 18 months, with seeders and investors getting more comfortable with virtual meetings.” 

But he believes that volatility will remain, and that it is important that managers don’t take risks outside of their normal strategy because they worry about money being pulled. “Stick with your strategy, because there will be ups and downs, and then communicate that message to your investors,” he says. 

Also, while many start-up managers don’t need to register as advisors because the threshold is USD150 million, Rosenthal recommends that they operate like registered funds: adopt the best practices and focus on compliance. “Hopefully in the short-term, they’ll have to register,” he says. “If you start from day one, adopting best practice and functioning as if you were registered as an advisor, it makes it easier later on.” 

Investing in the future

Anchin has been leveraging its expertise with start-ups this past year with the launch of its Emerging Managers Platform for hedge funds, private equity, real estate and venture capital. “This harnesses all our skills working with start-ups, counselling them, getting them the assistance they need to try to be successful. Because some of those smaller start-ups might be billion-dollar funds in the future,” Rosenthal says. 

Some more established funds are now looking at different asset classes, such as crypto and cannabis, or becoming more hybrid. “They are doing some private equity and some venture capital. You don’t want to be left behind,” Rosenthal warns. 

Over the next 18 months, Rosenthal believes that ESG will continue to be a hot topic and predicts that crypto will become an asset class in itself, creating more opportunity for funds to either diversify, or create whole new funds specialising in crypto. 

Founded in 1923, Anchin will soon reach its 100th birthday. On Anchin’s recipe for such a long corporate life, Rosenthal comments: “We pride ourselves on the culture we instil within the firm. I feel that Anchin is my second family, and it’s extending that to our clients and watching them grow. We have clients that are third generation clients and I have fund clients that have been with us for over 30 years. I hope it lasts another 100 years.” 


Jeffrey Rosenthal, Partner, Leader of Financial Services Practice, Anchin
Jeffrey Rosenthal, CPA, CGMA is the Leader of Anchin’s Financial Services Practice. Rosenthal specialises in providing accounting, tax, and business advice to a wide array of financial services entities, including broker/dealers, investment partnerships (domestic and offshore), funds-of-funds, mutual funds, private equity funds, and investment advisors. He has experience advising newly formed entities and assisting with start-up considerations, such as form of practice, structure of agreements, compensation arrangements, compliance, and regulatory matters.

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