Hi all,

Hope your institutional prospecting is going well. Hopefully this thread will help you to improve it. In this thread: theories and strategies working to develop new business with institutional investors in mid-2015.

We've started consolidating names and contact information for institutional investors for brokers to use for leads. So far (4/12) we've got pensions, 401ks, funds and banks available for free, with endowments and municipalities coming soon. We realized, however, that just using a big list to call may not be effective in helping brokers crack into the institutional investor world. While institutional investors in 2015 should be more receptive to independent and/or startup brokers and have fewer switching costs, in this thread we would like to get sense of how this business is closed first-hand. 

Strategy thoughts for mid-2015:

​Large pensions reducing alternatives allocations to chase performance and limit fee-related headline risk presents transactional opportunities. Large-scale switching costs potentially higher w/ERISA regulation, so try to get in with a small bond/equity transaction. Hedge funds, conversely, more attractive and attracted to smaller pensions and individuals with new Regulation D; consider funds of funds with VC exposure to sell the sizzle. Large banks are still in love with midsized secured transactions, but regional players may securitize and sell to hungry private funds, leaving cash for CUSIP-based transactions. Are there even any small players left?

I hope those, and others to come in this thread are helpful. Also, if you're interested: we're building a product at graypools.com to help brokers understand and connect with institutional investors. Any feedback is appreciated.

Regards,

Drew Miller