How The London Company Drives Idea Generation & Workflow Efficiency

Situation

>> No Central Repository

Trey Snow: Prior to the Verity research management system, research was dispersed across the firm. Nothing was centralized. We had a file server set up, organized by ticker (one for each folder). Some of that was maintained; some was not. There was data on analysts’ and PM’s individual computers. Some of that was being backed up; some of that likely wasn’t.

>> Sequestered Information

Snow: It was difficult to share information. The only avenue was email. Also, onboarding was slower than we wanted because there was no repository to get up to speed quickly on our stocks. A new analyst would have to sit down with each one of our analysts and PMs and learn the story verbally — or explore the shared drive and see what’s there. It took a lot of time.

I knew, having been in other shops, the importance of organization and workflow and RMS systems.

Solution

>> Narrowing the Field

Snow: I initially started with a list of about 15 RMS providers. Not all of them were viable at all. So, after some quick eliminations from that list, we worked it down to Verity.

>> Why Verity?

Snow: The difference for us was three-fold.

First, was how responsive the Verity team was. They were always there for us to answer questions, to hop on the phone, to hop on a zoom, and look at the product.

Second, I wanted a SaaS product that the team could access from the middle of nowhere. One that looked and felt more modern, more Gen-Z if you will. Something more friendly and approachable for the younger cohort of analysts. Other products just aren’t there. They look clunky. The look of Verity was very friendly.

Finally, the way that we could organize and categorize the information was disarming. The ability to tag and conduct deep searches was key for us.

Impact

>> Better Visibility Across the Firm

Snow: Visibility into the workflow management side is one positive impact. Management can see research move through the pipeline.

The increased access to information has helped build a neural network of data on our companies. “Well, I see what’s going on in this particular company, I think that may be relevant to mine over here.” Verity helped light that spark.

Last, I’d mention that my team no longer has to respond to compliance queries. Compliance has visibility into the research and can pull out what they need on their own.

>> Faster Workflows & Search

Snow: We started with Verity in fourth quarter 2019. So, when COVID hit and we were all sent home, Verity allowed us to not miss a single beat with our process. We moved incredibly easily from a traditional work environment to a virtual environment. We had everything we needed. In fact, I think it made us work better and more efficiently. It probably advanced our workflow by five years in terms of the digitization of it, and the efficiency and speed of it.

Workflow organization has been tremendous. It’s very easy to go somewhere and find something due to templates and tagging in VerityRMS. Searching was impossible before. The fact that PMs are be able to put in a couple of search terms and come up with 10 to 20 relevant results is extremely helpful.

>> Increased Mobility for Analysts & PMs

Snow: I would tell folks about the amount of time that it saved, the ability to access research anywhere, to grab your thoughts, to grab data — our own data. Certainly, there’s a lot of data out there for consumption, but being able to access our own analysis and data at any point has been a game-changer for us.

One of the most-powerful tools PMs have is the ability to take Verity — on their phone or iPad — into a client meeting and pull up live data, live valuation models, live earnings, commentary, and live news that we have analyzed right there, which was never possible before.

>> Accelerated Research With Integrated VerityData

Snow: Insider transactions are a very big part of our investment process. Getting timely updates and analysis from InsiderScore and understanding when management is aligned with us, when they’re buying stock, has been a tremendous part of our process since we started with InsiderScore nearly ten years ago.

inFilings has been a huge plus for us in terms of the speed at which it helps us analyze vast quantities of SEC data. Both VerityData products are ingrained into not only our big-picture work but also our day-to-day workflow. We are very happy customers.

The fact that we don’t have to jump out of Verity and go into either another tab or into a browser to pull up inFilings or InsiderScore is extremely helpful because we’re often looking at the most recent transactions. So, the ability to quickly jump from our proprietary data flow in VerityRMS into the InsiderScore data is very helpful.

Final Word

Snow: The difference Verity has made in our investment lives is worth it, with little time spent to get up to speed in the products. We are unabashed fans of all the Verity products, and I would have no hesitation in recommending them.

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