William
Battey is a Managing Director of Credit Suisse First
Boston and President of CSFB Data and Analytics LLC.
This business has been set up to organize and distribute
fundamental and securities data and analytical tools
generated by CSFB. Mr. Battey joined Credit Suisse First
Boston in 1979. He was hired into the New Business Group
within the Investment Banking Division. In 1986, he was
given responsibility to create a Medium-Term Note product
capability and over a three-year period built a team
that was ranked number two in the world. From 1989 to
1992, Mr. Battey ran the Pacific Investment Banking Unit
in New York. In 1993, he was asked to build a new business
team in New York to develop and execute all "Yankee" fixed
income new issue business for the Firm, building market
share from 7th to 3rd over a three-year period. Following
this assignment, Mr. Battey's moved to Hong Kong to run
the Firm’s Asia/Pacific debt new issue and syndicate
business. In 2000, he returned to New York and built
the Credit Research and Structured Products teams to
over 100 professionals worldwide. Prior to assuming this
position, the firm was not ranked in the top 10 by Institutional
Investor and other relevant polling organizations, however
by 2001, the Firm ranked in the top 3 worldwide. Earlier
this year, Mr. Battey established a new data and analytics
business for CSFB. Mr. Battey has been the lead banker
on "Deals of the Year" for a range of CSFB
clients including Australian Wheat Board, Asia Pulp and
Paper, General Motors Acceptance Corp, Korea Development
Bank, General Foods Corp, Hewlett-Packard Co., PepsiCo.,
Petronas, People's Republic of China and Samsung Electronics.
Mr. Battey received a B.A., cum laude, from Williams
College and an M.B.A. from Columbia University.
Hello Bill, Can you give us some background
about CSFB Data & Analytics?
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In
June of this year, Credit Suisse First Boston
(“CSFB”) established a new, non-broker
dealer company, called CSFB Data & Analytics,
LLC (“CSFB DNA”). This firm will
house and distribute, directly and through
third party partners, economic and company
data and information on trader priced securities
combined within an integrated analytic and
technology platform. CSFB DNA will not house
or distribute any research product of CSFB
and all services will be offered on a direct
cash-paying basis.
Whether you are a manager of securities, loan assets or a direct investor
-- no matter where you are situated in the world, CSFB DNA products will
better enable your organization to arrive at its own decisions on how best
to manage the company’s risk position.
Could you tell us a little bit about some
of CSFB DNA’s product offering?
The first product available is a sovereign risk management tool called "Sovereign
Data+™" (SD+™). CSFB has combined its economists’ forecasts
with World Bank and IMF data to offer 10 years of history and 2 years of
projections, covering approximately 100 countries. CSFB's quantitative team
has provided tools to interpret country ratings and the fair value of a given
country's fixed income risk. The site provides straightforward country reports
and comparisons as well as fixed income, FX and equity market information
and major news. This service is provided in one convenient location at roughly
half the price of the major competitors. Just this month, we added a company
website to allow customers to access an extensive database of company level
financial information. Utilizing the judgment of CSFB's credit analysts,
we offer derived financial information, which in the analyst's opinion, more
fairly reflect the financial position of a given company in its sector. The
company website, “Company View+™" (CV+™), is divided
into 17 different major sectors, covering over 30,000 companies, located
in approximately 75 counties. We include debt maturity schedules, benchmark
bond data, equity prices, news and top holders of bonds and stocks. We also
include credit risk scores calculated every day by CSFB’s proprietary
risk model, the Credit Underlying Securities Pricing Model (CUSP). So in
one platform, customers will have access to fundamental data and analytics
on countries (SD+) and companies (CV+), worldwide. We see this as a tremendous
value for customers and a competitive advantage versus other data providers
in this space.
The third series of products now available provides full access to all fixed
income and convertible over the counter securities data in 6 currencies worldwide,
priced by CSFB traders. This universe of government, credit and structured
products comprises the 25-30,000 securities that most major investors utilize
for pricing their portfolios or for use within their quantitative analysis.
CSFB has also released our quantitative credit risk tool, CUSP™, as
a stand-alone product. Fully integrated with our credit data (initially,
High Grade and ultimately High Yield and Emerging Markets), CUSP offers a
risk profile of each major, rated company. In addition to the credit risk
scores available in CV+, the complete CUSP product provides model input data,
volatility sensitivity metrics, and tools for risk reports and graphic analysis.
This will be useful for credit, equity and lending risk managers concerned
with monitoring company specific risk events and trading opportunities.
The fifth series of products is our Global Relative Value Calculator‰,
which is a securities search engine that fully integrates CSFB's data platform.
An investor can define the selection process by currency, credit rating,
industry sector, or maturity sector across all of our liquid fixed income
indices in US Dollar, Euro, Sterling, Swiss Franc, or Yen. The results page
lists the bonds specified by the selection process and provides spread to
LIBOR levels in a common chosen currency creating a basic cheap/rich comparison.
The time series for cross currency data of individual bonds is also available
and downloadable to Excel. The Global Relative Value Calculator provides
one-stop-shopping for comprehensive relative value analysis of the corporate
bond market.
Many
sovereign data services are geared towards equity investors.
From our discussions you have noted CSFB DNA is gearing
itself to reach out to a far wider audience. Can you
give us more details about the sovereign product?
Since CSFB’s inception, the firm has been known for its excellence
in economic analysis. This fundamental interpretation of macroeconomic data
and trends facilitate our clients’ ability to make direct investment
and portfolio management decisions. Taking advantage of this global intellectual
resource, CSFB Data & Analytics has established the SD+ website.
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SD+
covers close to 100 developed and developing
countries. We have wrapped a useable online application
around macroeconomic history from the World Bank,
economic forecasts from CSFB’s global economists
and the IMF, current and historical equity data
from Reuters, and CSFB’s own fixed income
data. We are particularly proud of our financial
market data, which includes 10 years of history,
and is current as of the previous days close.
This is true for even the most exotic instruments
being traded that nonetheless have a significant
effect on the risk profile of a country and region.
Our fixed income data, which includes emerging
market sovereign credits, is priced daily by
CSFB traders and will be of particular interest,
especially given that most vendors do not offer
this type of information.
We also offer a company database where a client will be able to directly
link country economic statistics to company data. This back and forth capability
should make access to fundamental data - economic and company – quite
easy. All website access will also be offered jointly through one or more
of our distributors.
CSFB has also developed three major analytical tools for sovereign risk assessment.
The first tool tries to assess the direction of credit ratings in a given
country. This model does not try to answer what the rating is – S&P
and Moody’s already provide this view – but rather which way
the credit is going – up or down. The second tool tries to assess the
risk-adjusted cost of fixed income in a given country by arriving at a “fair
value” spread versus LIBOR in U.S. dollars. The third tool is an econometric
FX model that forecasts the return probabilities from going long or short
local currencies on a one-month forward exchange rate basis in the emerging
markets. None of these tools provide “the answer” but can be
used with different data assumptions to review “what if” scenarios
designed by the client.
Can you tell us a little about your target
audience?
We believe any organization with international exposure will have an interest
in the Sovereign Data+ website. Within the financial sector, this includes
research analysts, portfolio managers and economists in both the Equity and
Fixed Income sectors. On the corporate side, multinational firms (CFO, CIO,
Treasury Department, Credit Department, Cash Management, FX groups, Risk
Management, Corporate Planning, Corporate and Library Department) and government
officials (Ministry of Trade, Finance, Investments, Funding, Central Banks)
can all benefit from this service provided at a cost effective price.
One of the interesting parts of the DNA
service is the multitude of service providers and
information sources that can be accessed. In KWR
International’s case this includes offering
commentary and consulting services that helps subscribers
to "move beyond the data" they access
through the site. Can you tell us how you went
about selecting your team and the range of information
and services they can provide?
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Yes,
in the case of the SD+ website, we purposely
sought out “best-in-class” institutions
to not only enhance our platform with alternative
sources of information but also to include alternative
points of view. Having information and data from
the World Bank, IMF, Reuters and CSFB gives customers
the ability to better make their own decisions
with respect to risk and investments.
After issuing our press release announcing KWR’s alliance with CSFB
DNA, we received several inquiries from potential subscribers wondering whether
this service was limited to existing CSFB banking clients. CSFB DNA’s
products are not limited to existing CSFB clients.
I understand that you are offering no obligation
trial subscriptions to the CSFB DNA service for
potential subscribers who want to try out the system
and determine whether it meets their specific needs
and requirements. Can you tell us a little more
about this offer and how our readers might take
you up on this offer?
For qualified purchasers, we are offering a two-week free trial for all of
our products. Please go to www.csfbdna.com to register.
Thank
you Bill for your taking this time to speak with our
readers.
KWR International is distribution partner for the CSFB DNA SD+ information
service. For more information on KWR’s alliance with CSFB DNA, please click
here:
