Looking Glass Investments (LGI), a fixed-income alternative investment firm focused on marketplace lending, has opened a research office in Brunswick, Maine.
Nathan Tefft (pictured), PhD, an economics professor and LGI's Executive Vice President and Chief Economist, leads the new office.
"The founding members of Looking Glass Investments believed from the outset that research would drive our business. With the support of our new Advisory Committee, we are experiencing tremendous growth, and now is the ideal time to open what I believe to be the first-ever research lab for marketplace lending predictive analytics," says Matthew O'Malley, President and Chief Operating Officer of LGI. "Our proprietary research differentiates LGI."
The office will provide opportunities for students at nearby Bates College in Lewiston, Maine to participate in research on marketplace lending beginning this summer through the college's Purposeful Work internship program, which "prepares students for success in the modern economy."
Marketplace or online lending is a growing method of financing that enables individuals and businesses to borrow money at online markets such as Prosper, Lending Club, and Funding Circle. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland in a 2014 research note, "Individuals who either cannot get loans from traditional banks or who wish to consolidate their credit card balances at lower interest rates find peer-to-peer [marketplace] lending an attractive alternative."
"At least as far back as my great-great-grandfather, my family worked in textile mills up and down Maine's Androscoggin River, from Lewiston to Brunswick," says Tefft. "Now, in a research office located in a reimagined and redeveloped mill on the river, we have the opportunity to build econometric and machine learning models in support of LGI.
"I am especially grateful for the opportunity to give back to my hometown and to my students through research in predictive analytics."