Money management firms around the world are continually faced with increasing pressure to show above-average investment performance over an extended period of time. Coupled with this challenge is the task of keeping costs under control. This dilemma keeps all but the largest firms from establishing the necessary global investment research infrastructure to maintain a competitive edge. The majority of asset management firms are thus forced to tackle the challenge in a different manner: by focusing on their areas of specialization, redirecting all of their internal resources to these areas, and complementing their own strengths with the expertise of others. The answer is outsourcing. By combining one's own strength with the expertise of others, the client can obtain a genuine value-added service.

FS Associates offers access to thousands of different U.S. based investment managers. The firm's large proprietary databases open the door to a wide range of different styles in equities and fixed income expertise, not limited to US markets. The vast talent pool of US based investment managers includes many whose expertise is in the international and global area as well as in emerging markets.

Over the years we have built a proprietary database of boutique money management firms with many of them being not well known to the local investment management consulting community. Many of these firms manage less than US $1 billion and could be categorized as Emerging Managers. While these fund managers may be relatively small in size, they nonetheless posses a deep and strong investment management infrastructure as well as a dedicated business culture. A growing number of the money managers found in our proprietary database are located in emerging markets.

FS Associates provides the client with an individually tailored program, based upon specific needs and constraints as determined by a detailed investment policy statement.   The managers are then selected according to specific quantitative and qualitative criteria.    Information about the managers is then input into a state of the art computer system, which, when combined with the vast databases at FS Associates' disposal, returns a custom-selected list of suitable traditional US-based managers.

Our services are of particular interest to foreign entities looking for US based money management expertise be it for direct mandates, sub-advisory relationship or for multi-manager funds.

In detail we provide to our clients we following services:

• Investment Policy Formulation
  
• Manager Selection
  
• Performance Evaluation and Ongoing Reviewing Process
  

FS Associates not only possesses the technical ability to find the ideal U.S. based investment management resources, but as a direct result of a long history of cross-continental cultural bridging in finding the right match for any particular client, is also aware of the distinctive needs of its foreign counterpart.