Financial services
We work across all areas of retail and wholesale financial services. We’ll deliver you a fresh approach to PR that gets you the results you want month in month out.
PR for a global investment firm with $37bn in assets under management
Our client, a fund manager with $37bn in assets under management and over $350bn in assets under advisement, wanted a proactive PR programme that would raise its profile amongst pension funds, endowments & foundations, and family offices and to generate new business leads.
We quickly got to grips with the complex investment topics that would appeal to their clients. We picked the most stratgeically importnant of these topics. These were then turned into press releases which communicated the issues in an easily digestible, understandable way to journalists. Topics covered as part of the PR programme included:
- Performance of sector-focused private equity funds versus generalist PE funds
- Returns from Alternative Risk Premia funds
- What’s driving investment portfolio performance of endowment & foundations
- Why the environment for active fund managers versus index trackers is changing
- Performance of funds investing in CAT bonds and other insurance-linked securities narrows
As well as drafting press releases, distributing them and following up with journalists, other activity delivered as part of the programme included:
- Arranging and attending meetings with leading journalists at publications such as the Financial Times, TheEconomist and Wall Street Journal
- Arranging speaker opportunities for PR conferences
- Securing an active pipeline of features pieces in specialist trade magazines and drafting those articles
Through this programme, the fund manager achieved regular, high value coverage in media outlets read by key decision makers at potential clients, such as trustees, CFOs and investment committees. This included profile pieces in the Financial Times, Reuters, Euromoney and IPE.
Establishing an investment bank as a leading commentator on emerging market bonds
Our client, a leading fixed income-focused investment bank, wanted to increase market recognition for the depth of its expertise in emerging markets bonds. To do this, we identified issues that would be of interest to their potential clients amongst institutional investors and where they would be able to demonstrate insight in a few key geographies.
These topics included:
• Argentina
- Javier Milei’s radical economic reforms and impact on
- Argentinian sovereign bonds
- Impact of the relaxation of export controls
• Turkey
- President Erdoğan’s turn towards economic orthodoxy and its effects on Turkish debt
- Monthly inflation announcements and central bank meetings
• Venezuela
- The outlook for Venezuelan government bonds
- The impact of Maduro’s re-election on the Venezuelan economy and financial markets
• Other geographies
- The progress of the Ecuador government’s debt-for-nature swaps
- The impact of the Ukraine crisis on bonds in the Caucasus
- The ceasefire in Lebanon and its impact on Lebanese and
- Israeli bonds
All content for the PR programme was drafted by Mattison Public Relations with the specific aim of getting our client access to the most influential publications for their clients and potential clients. This delivered transformative media coverage in the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, CNN and The Washington Post. Most importantly, it drove a greater volume of inbound enquiries due to the firm’s sharply increased profile in the market.
Raising the profile of a global insurance group
Coverage achieved for our client in first four years of the programme
Our client, a global insurer, wanted to increase its profile amongst the Lloyd’s market, in other international insurance markets and directly with corporates through a programme of thought leadership topics.
In the first year of our programme, Mattison Public Relations immediately provided a significant jump in positive press coverage compared to the year before the campaign began – from six items of positive press coverage to 43 in our first year.
That performance continued with a 64% increase in the last 12 months to 210 items of positive press coverage, including several opportunities created with the Financial Times and Wall Street Journal.
In the latest year, we achieved 35 times the amount of coverage our client achieved before the start of the programme, with 210 pieces of coverage across both national and trade media.
We analysed press coverage for our client and its competitors, since we started working for them – across a sample of key media outlets:
- Financial Times
- The Times
- The Telegraph
- City AM
- Insurance Day
- Insurance Insider
- The Insurer
- Insurance Journal
- Insurance Age
We found that our programme heavily outperformed our client’s peer group’s PR programme, the nearest competitor managing 38 items of positive press coverage in the last year, 20% less than our client.
Establishing the profile of a quantitative trading driven model portfolio service
Our client, an asset manager, wanted an ambitious PR programme to help attract new clients to it’s quantitative trading based model portfolio service. We were tasked with gaining regular coverage in the media read by its key demographic of wealth managers so it could stand out from its rival in a competitive market.
To do this, we delivered a high-impact series of PR campaigns on the issues that really matter to wealth managers and their clients and where our client could genuinely add high-value insight.
We identified topics, undertook bespoke research, drafted all the necessary content and distributed it to our unrivalled book of influential journalist contacts – all within one competitive monthly fee. We did all the ‘heavy lifting’ of the PR programme, freeing our client to spend their time on growing their business. Topics for our PR campaigns included
- Price volatility of UK corporate bonds and gilts
- The total value of UK investor’s US dollar holdings
- Use of AI in portfolio management
- Gold investment as a diversifier
- Performance of equities in higher inflation periods
- What questions wealth managers need to ask about asset liquidity within funds
Our work gave our client regular positive exposure in the media read by wealth managers and high net worth individuals, including the Financial Times, the Daily Mail, City AM, FT Adviser, Money Marketing and Investments and Pensions Europe. This campaign drove inbound calls and new business leads for our client.
Launch of a new bank
Our client, a challenger bank, wanted a 12-month PR programme to relaunch its brand with new SME-focused messaging, with the aim of quickly increasing the size of its SME loan book.
We quickly recognised that if Aldermore could position itself as a champion for SMEs (one of its main markets), then it could clearly differentiate itself from competitors and become the go-to commentator for the national media – we were the first to take this market position. Other activity delivered as part of the PR programme included:
- Issuing commentary and research on SME finance which had become a hot topic
- Seizing and creating opportunities to comment on other SME business issues such as tax, payment terms, red-tape, Government contracts for small businesses etc.
- Developing Aldermore’s corporate profile through a series of meetings with senior journalists. In 12 months, we organised 24 meetings with senior banking and business writers on the national papers and across broadcast media like the BBC and Sky
In under a year, we generated 61 pieces of national broadcast and print coverage that was directly and entirely attributable to our work – transforming Aldermore’s profile and helping propel their growth. The PR programme also helped our client achieve:
- A 77% increase in lending to its key sector of SMEs to £525m. In addition, the number of savings customers had risen by 169% to 37,300, the value of their residential mortgage book had increased by 778% to £280m and deposits had almost trebled to £878m.
- A successful relaunch which ultimately culminated in a sale to South African bank FirstRand for over £1bn
Launch of a hedge fund
We were asked by a Geneva based fund management company to help with the launch of the first specialist hedge fund to target the Greek economy.
Positive coverage in key publications was secured by a combination of:
- Building strong relationships with key journalists to educate them about the fund
- Holding one-to-one and interviews between the client and key media such as the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Sunday Times and Reuters
- Actively selling in press material on the launch of the fund and why Greek assets offered a good risk/reward profile, including an analysis of valuations of Greek assets
- Distributing press material on more focused topics such as the restructuring of Greek Government Bonds and the recapitalisation of Greek banks (a topic our client wanted to generate positive coverage on)
Results
- Feature pieces in the FT, Sunday Times and other international media on the launch of the fund – all overcoming scepticism of Greek assets as an investment opportunity
- A very positive article focused on the early performance of the fund in the FT
- Positive coverage of the topic of bank recapitalisation in the FT and WSJ (quoting our client). An additional positive piece on the Greek bank recapitalisation trade in the prestigious LEX COLUMN in the FT
- Winner of New Hedge Fund of the Year Award
- Wide scale coverage in trade media
- All achieved on a modest budget
Raising the profile of a debt fund manager
Our client was the world’s largest fund manager specialising in emerging market private loans. They wanted to use PR to assist in the raising of a major new fund. Our approach to this programme comprised four key techniques:
- Setting up media briefings to coincide with the firm’s regional fundraising roadshows in the US, Japan, UK and mainland Europe. These briefings included key international publications like the Financial Times as well as all three global editions of the Wall Street Journal (US, Europe and Asia). They also covered key trade media like Institutional Investor, Private Equity International and Infrastructure Journal
- Research-driven press releases on trends in lending to emerging economies, such as tracking global syndicated lending flows and lending to agribusiness in emerging markets
- Regular press releases on deals written by our client’s funds, distributed along with a comprehensive background note explaining the fund’s investment rationale
- Press notes on performance of the client’s existing funds to highlight returns
The results of the programme included a sharp increase in interest in our clients’ funds, both from institutional investors and from the multilateral development banks our client was seeking to invest alongside. Our work gave them access to platforms to which they had never previously been able to reach, including live TV interviews on CNBC, a one-page feature piece in the FT and landmark features in the Economist.
Driving sales for an asset finance client
Businesses within the asset finance sector often share common goals in their marketing strategies; to increase short term sales, to help build their brand over the medium and long term and to ensure that their market position is both clearly and powerfully defined.
Our objective, set by this client, was to establish them as the champions of their core sectors – SMEs, the professions and the education sector. In addition, we were tasked with strategically important initiatives such as raising their profile amongst banks in order to attract more funding.
The PR programme involved identifying topics that would be of interest to our client’s customers and generating content (press releases, comment articles, blogs, tweets) designed to bring these issues to a UK wide audience through the media: national, trade and social media. Activities included:
- Supporting our clients’ sales and marketing teams with targeting PR campaigns aimed at supporting short-term sales initiatives
- Issuing relevant commentary and research, driven and generated by ourselves, to increase name recognition, recall and awareness of its brand across key sectors.
Our research and commentary generated substantial exposure for our client in the national media, including the Financial Times, The Times and The Daily Telegraph. The programme also helped our client achieve:
- More incoming enquiries from new business prospects
- Additional wholesale funding lines – critical to the expansion of their business
- An increase in sales, meet new introducers and drive their business forward
- Approaches from potential acquirers which led to a successful exit
Raising the profile of an EIS provider to HNWs
Our client, an EIS provider, wanted an ambitious PR programme that would increase their assets under management and create a healthier pipeline of investments and referrals for them.
To do this, we identified a number of topics that our client could offer expert insight on. Topics were designed not just to highlight trends and relevant issues but also as a call to action.
We generated proprietary, research-based press releases on topics relevant to UK private investors. These included studies into trends in EIS investment, EIS pre-approval rates by HMRC, the volume of new company creation and trends in EIS investment by sector. We also added in studies on other, less central but still relevant topics such as the number of HNWs in the UK and the number of high earning women (a category that the client was targeting).
In addition to our programme of research, we created a steady flow of opportunities for our client to comment on investment news and trends, utilising our experience and expertise with national and trade media publications. Through our journalist contacts within the personal finance and IFA press, we were able to generate positive coverage for our client and their product, benefitting their pipeline of investments and referrals and helping to increase their assets under management.
Our PR programme achieved regular, positive national media coverage for our client, helping them client to attract increased investment in their funds despite the financial crisis. Coverage achieved included front-page stories in The Financial Times, The Times and The Daily Telegraph.
Through our work, our client also became established as a thought leader and go to commentator on issues and topics around tax efficient investment.
