About us
Mission
Spartan Research is the leading company representing independent, unbiased, institutional research. We proactively match independent research providers with our large and growing list of institutional clients across the hedge fund, mutual fund, and family office universe.
Since 1996 Spartan has cultivated relationships with thousands of institutional investors seeking to eliminate the “noise” and identify truly meaningful research. Our mission is to fully understand the investment discipline of our institutional clients and match the investment discipline of each client with independent, unbiased research that will add significant value.
Adding Value
Spartan is not a broker. This enables us to work together with brokers interested in stimulating trading activity through the sale of independent research. Our unique business model has allowed us to be differentiated by successfully building businesses for several independent research providers and simultaneously driving significant trading flow to our brokerage clients. All of this is achieved in the process of helping our institutional clients find the best independent research available. Spartan was a pioneer of the non-brokerage independent research representation model. Our extensive track record of consistent success is unprecedented in the industry. To this day, we are unaware of any other company that has executed the “Spartan” model with the level of success we have enjoyed.
Due Diligence & Product Development
We routinely conduct a two-step due diligence process when considering an independent research provider for representation to our clients. First, it must be confirmed that the research provider is completely unbiased and conflict-free. Second, the research provider must have a proven track record of truly differentiated data points that will provide Spartan clients with meaningful insights.
Spartan works proactively with research providers in the area of product development and maintains an in-depth, ongoing understanding of the research services we represent. This focus ensures that research services we represent are always “on point” and one step ahead of the competition. Perhaps it is our aversion to aggregate large numbers of research products and focus only on the very best analysts that has kept us on top of the industry for so many years. This is one of the many reasons Spartan Research stands alone in the eyes of so many of our institutional clients.
Research Providers
Objective
Spartan Research’s main goal is to relinquish its research vendors of all of the laborious and time consuming functions of running a business that takes time away from doing what research vendors do best—research. By accomplishing this, Spartan enables its research vendors to produce high-quality competitive research that enables the research vendors to reach their desired revenue goals in the shortest practicable time period.
Existing Buy-Side Relationships
Since 1996 Spartan Research has established and maintains existing relationships with a large number of buy-side clients and prospective clients. We can open doors for research vendors into the offices of buy-side decision makers. We maintain a proprietary database profiling buy-side decision makers and their historical independent research purchasing behavior. Obtaining an audience with the appropriate decision makers is the single most important part of the independent research business as it is irrelevant how good a research product may be if an audience with prospective clients cannot be obtained.
Sales and Marketing
The Spartan sales staff proactively sells its research vendors products. Unlike a passive marketing organization that merely aggregates a large number of research vendors onto one platform, our sales associates proactively seek out potential clients each day with the goal of maximizing revenues through the shortest possible sales cycle. We are a highly regarded boutique firm among the buy-side community and have a well earned reputation of being aligned with a selective group of top-tier independent research vendors. We have a proven track record of acquiring new clients at optimal price points.
Spartan's non-brokerage model has enabled us to establish a vast network of sales people at soft-dollar brokers that wish to introduce independent research to their clients and prospective clients for the purpose of stimulating trading activity. We currently communicate with over 150 soft dollar sales people.
Fulfillment and Retention Services
Spartan Research provides fulfillment services to its research vendors. We maintain long-established relationships with the sales and administrative staffs in the brokerage community. We employ proprietary techniques to ensure the expeditious approval and payment of all broker invoices. We control a significant flow of business to many brokers that ensures proper attention is given to all Spartan invoices.
We maintain a proprietary database of the payment history of institutional buy-side clients. Armed with this information, we are able to understand the cornerstones of client invoicing—who, when, and why. By implementing our proprietary invoicing techniques we ensure the highest client retention rates.
Spartan provides fulfillment, retention, and client management services to the pre-existing client base of its research vendors as an additional service. This fully relinquishes the research vendor of these time consuming functions for pre-existing clients as well as new clients.
Client Service & Product Development
Spartan Research provides client relationship management services to all its research clients. Our associates make themselves available to answer any research service questions a client may have. We communicate with clients when a vendor has a data point they may wish to communicate to clients through us. Spartan maintains an extensive client management database. Our associates continuously update this system with copious notes relating to all client and prospective client conversations. This information proves invaluable when reminding a client where value was obtained in a particular research service during the invoice period.
Spartan continuously assists its research vendors with product development. We have found that clients and prospective clients are much more candid with a third-party representation company then when speaking directly with the research vendor. This improved communication accelerates the product development process, allowing the research vendor to be on point and on the cutting edge of what the clients and prospective clients perceive to deliver the greatest incremental value. Spartan has been instrumental in helping research vendors create and merchandize additional research offerings based on our ability to identify markets for each vendors unique data points. We also assist our research vendors in the area of pricing. Spartan quickly assesses where the pricing “sweet spot” is for each research offering based on what the market currently bears for similar research.
Brokers
In today’s competitive brokerage environment brokers are constantly searching for ways to differentiate their offerings to the buy-side community. As a result. brokers are increasingly looking towards independent research to augment their proprietary research offerings. Since 1996, Spartan Research has consulted with brokers in various capacities to augment and enhance their existing proprietary research offerings by interweaving unique independent research into each broker’s current research offerings. This effort creates a more comprehensive and compelling research mosaic for the broker.
Spartan’s consultancy goes far beyond research product identification, evaluation, and placement. Once the appropriate independent research has been selected, our professional sales team then works closely with the brokers to monetize their relationships with the buy-side community through the sales of selected independent research products. Our sales professionals train brokerage personnel on the research so that the brokerage personnel can knowledgeably introduce the selected research to their buy-side clients. Once the introduction has been made, a Spartan salesperson then communicates the necessary product information to the potential research client. Once the client has selected a research product for purchase, our personnel will continue to support the client after the point-of-sale by adding an additional layer of client support to both the broker and the research provider.
Whether it is a large broker endeavoring to monetize existing relationships or a smaller broker endeavoring to build a business by attracting new clients with unique offerings, Spartan has lead the way as a pioneer in the independent research representation and consulting space. Our unique non-brokerage representation model has allowed us to work collectively with brokers wishing to leverage Spartan’s core competency of identifying truly unique independent research and effectively placing the research with the appropriate buy-side clients.
Institutional Investors
Since 1996, Spartan Research has provided independent research consulting services to our institutional clients. We maintain one of the largest proprietary databases of independent, unbiased, research providers in existence. This database is comprised of existing research services as well as industry consultants and academics that have unique, differentiated data points that deliver alpha to our institutional clientele. We actively manage this database by constantly adding new independent research providers that meet our stringent requirements and removing those who fail to maintain the level of quality Spartan requires.
Spartan maintains an active dialog with all clients to understand the current investment discipline of each client. Before introducing a research service to one of our institutional clients, we must first determine that it is an appropriate match with the client’s investment discipline. All research must first pass Spartan’s rigorous due diligence process to determine that the research is insightful, differentiated, and Alpha-generating.
Spartan has developed an impressive stable of custom research analysts with various areas of expertise. We are always ready to provide our institutional clients with the “human bandwidth” necessary to manage the elastic nature of research needs.
Many of our institutional clients retain Spartan to screen and manage their independent research providers. We interact with these clients on a regular basis to ensure that the mosaic of independent research selected is the best for each client’s research discipline. All independent research providers that call our buy-side clients are directed to Spartan for evaluation and possible recommendation to the client.
Careers
At Spartan Research, we are constantly seeking exceptional individuals to join our company. As the premier independent research representation firm, we employ individuals that exemplify the highest standard of professionalism. Our sales professionals play a pro-active role in all aspects of building independent research businesses; including sales and marketing, product development, and client relationship management. You will be working with dynamic individuals in a fast-paced, stimulating environment.
We are particularly interested in individuals with equity research sales experience and current buy-side relationships.
If you feel you have what it takes to be considered for an opportunity at Spartan, please send your cover letter and resume to careers@spartanresearch.com.