Maximising Value Through Excellence

Offerings

Our extensive structured investment service offerings fall into three broad categories, all of which we can tailor to meet specific investment strategies.

1) ACE

Trade support isn’t an area that gets most investors’ hearts racing, but perhaps this is the very reason why so many organisations continue to shoulder such a heavy administrative load. For too long, the disconnect between offshore life companies and investment banks when it comes to the organisation of structured products offshore has been chaotic. In the past, this has led to settlement breaks, trade failings, misunderstandings on either side, unnecessary costs – the list is endless. These issues led investment banks to produce lower-quality investment products to cover the clerical burden and this started to stifle the growth prospects of the industry as a whole. Both life companies and investment banks simply started pulling out of the space.

Affinity saw another way. We’ve built a sophisticated FinTech system, nicknamed ACE, from the ground up that revolutionises the way insurers do business with their banks. Every order that comes through us is checked, validated and condensed down so that investment banks receive relevant, accurate information without any extra work on their parts. On the other side, the life companies have seen a dramatic increase in efficiencies and accuracy when it comes to the onerous task of splitting their trades across multiple clients.

Our scalable solution minimises settlement issues and disputes, allowing banks to reallocate resources to growth-oriented areas of their businesses. Alleviating this considerable burden is key to making structured investments efficient and more affordable for clients. After all, organisations such as life companies that want to benefit from the wholesale proposition can’t act like retail clients, and this is a crucial step in the right direction.

2) Independence, Panel and Pricing Model

Unbiased advice is incredibly rare in the structured investments industry. Affinity has worked diligently to change that by providing extensive analysis of structures based on our independent pricing models, as well as strong, long-term relationships with more than 20 investment banks.

We recognised a fundamental need among high-net-worth individuals, family offices, private banks and discretionary fund managers for more independent guidance and education regarding structured investments. For many, media portrayals of structures and derivatives as opaque, risky and complex had left them sceptical of adding this asset class to their portfolios. Our objective is to show that structures are not only a safe vehicle for their money but also an essential part of investment strategies for risk-averse clients.

Affinity’s very niche and specific pricing system is the first of its kind outside an investment bank, and the technology allows us to quantify and analyse the details of every single investment in a structure. We only deal in a wholesale institutional way, which enables us to achieve best-price costing for clients. Our current client portfolios are all ones that each have £50 million or more to invest in structured investments.

3) Equity Partnerships

The positive feedback and success we have achieved since founding the company has allowed us to pursue projects that are close to our hearts. Ultimately, our people are passionate about honesty, transparency and working towards the greater good.

Despite a stable and loyal client base, many of whom we have worked with for more than a decade, we keep our eyes open to the next equity partnership opportunity. However, our rapid growth in the structured investments space means we are selective when choosing potential partners.

We take equity partnerships very seriously and commit a significant amount of our time, knowledge and resources towards building successful joint ventures (JV) with our partners. In any JV, Affinity typically commits the brand, the thought leadership, the wholesale structured investment product, the strategy, the trade management, the education and the sales process, among other things. Our partners usually have an existing distribution network and are looking to organically grow their distribution by adding an entire investment asset class into the mix. Because structures tend to be brand new offerings for most of our new partners, the additional AUM doesn’t cannibalise any of the existing relationships but rather grows the overall access to AUM.

Potential partners therefore will want to fit with our ethos, meet our minimum financial requirements and show a willingness to put their clients at the heart of the proposition. Anything less is a waste of time for all the parties involved.

Professional investors and finance industry organisations that would like to learn more about our suite of structured investment services can get in touch through email at enquiries@affinitycapital.co.uk or phone us on 020 7297 2816.