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Articles by Michael Spellacy
Bank Deregulation Primer 2025
Alvarez & Marsal are most popular: within Finance and Banking, Criminal Law and Law Practice Management topic(s) As global regulators set their approaches for banks capital requirements, the implications for the world's largest banks are becoming increasingly significant. In our inaugural Bank Deregulation Primer, we assess the potential impact of these regulatory shifts on the top 19 global banks.
2024 Key Banking Themes For The Year Ahead
The Banking Industry stands at a very challenging juncture. While interest rate increases have allowed banks to improve profitability and shareholder returns, the core challenge facing most CEOs and boards is their dismal valuations and growth trajectories on both relative and absolute bases. Many banks continue to trade below book value.
Wealth Managers, Take Note: Trendy Products And Services Are No Substitute For Holistic Advice
It’s no secret that many of the major capital markets firms are focused on growing their wealth management businesses to capture its steady and lucrative fees, with the value of wealth assets under management reaching all-time highs in 2020. Despite the industry’s healthy deposits, it is in danger of losing its moorings. In recent years, many firms have drifted away from their core purpose, which is to provide exceptional investment advice to individuals.
How to take back control of your mental and physical health
What a year these past 12 months have been. A pandemic, new financial concerns, home schooling, changes at work, social distancing, those darn masks — along with all our normal stressors — have really changed our perspective on life. In my role as a family physician, I am seeing more patients with a higher acuity of health problems. It appears to be driven by the fear of the unknown that surrounds us. By giving into fear, we can easily lose control of what needs to be done.
How to take back control of your mental and physical health
What a year these past 12 months have been. A pandemic, new financial concerns, home schooling, changes at work, social distancing, those darn masks — along with all our normal stressors — have really changed our perspective on life. In my role as a family physician, I am seeing more patients with a higher acuity of health problems. It appears to be driven by the fear of the unknown that surrounds us. By giving into fear, we can easily lose control of what needs to be done.
How to take back control of your mental and physical health
What a year these past 12 months have been. A pandemic, new financial concerns, home schooling, changes at work, social distancing, those darn masks — along with all our normal stressors — have really changed our perspective on life. In my role as a family physician, I am seeing more patients with a higher acuity of health problems. It appears to be driven by the fear of the unknown that surrounds us. By giving into fear, we can easily lose control of what needs to be done.
Three steps to manage different wealth management clients in the future
There will be no going back to the world as we knew it pre-COVID-19. The pandemic has only accelerated the digital migration that was taking place across societies, requiring wealth managers to shorten their own digital transformations from ten years to five. The future could be a hybrid of regular physical and digital interactions with clients, and the speed at which wealth managers should adapt to it has just doubled. Massive outflows of wealth… Digital transformation is a big ask.
Authentic Opportunity: Wealth Managers Need A Strategy For Digital Assets
Wealth managers need a strategy for digital assets that go well beyond Bitcoin and Ethereum. getty We are only a few months into 2021, but the financial world is staking an early claim for word of the year. Whether you read the business pages, participate in the art market, or just follow the latest celebrity gossip, everyone’s talking about NFTs, or nonfungible tokens. They are digital assets that are validated by blockchain technology and purchased with cryptocurrencies.
Go Big Or Go Home: Asset & Wealth Managers Need To Seize The Day On AI
AI can transform asset and wealth management getty The world’s stewards of capital have realized that they can’t do without artificial intelligence (AI), the technology that generates insights from mountains of data to drive enterprise value. But not everyone is moving at the same speed. A gulf is opening up between the leaders, who have taken the plunge and industrialized and scaled AI across their organization, and those who are merely dipping their toes in the water.
The G-Force In ESG: What Will Shape Corporate Governance In 2021?
getty It’s fair to say that corporate governance has somewhat of an image problem. In the popular imagination, the company boardroom is where older, stuffy and mostly male directors meet a few times a year to connect with each other and the CEO, and vote on opaque matters relating to executive compensation or leadership structure. The reality is however that lots of corporate governance is tedious and ham-handed.
Looking Ahead: Ten Trends For Investment Banks, Wealth And Asset Managers In 2021
Getty There is no doubt that Covid-19 turned 2020 into an annus horribilis for the global financial services sector, but the pandemic cannot be the scapegoat for the woes of capital markets firms. That is because the core challenges facing asset managers, wealth managers and investment banks – such as digital disruption, shifting revenues, rising and bloated cost-levels and challenged customer service – long predate Covid-19.
Why Capital Markets Must Embrace Change And The Cloud
getty Capital markets used to enjoy a reputation for being on the cutting-edge of technology. Today, almost every industry is using AI, predictive analytics and giant data servers in some way, but hedge funds and asset managers were ahead of the curve in leveraging software and algorithms for their risk modeling, pricing and quantitative trading already back in the early 2000s.
The Path Forward For European Investment Banking
getty As we approach another earnings season, all eyes are likely to be on how European investment banks perform absent the banner trading revenues that powered them through the first half of the year. The return on equity for the top 9 global investment banks in 2019 was 10.1%, but absent the top five American banks, that figure plummets to 2.4% RoE. There is not a single full-service investment bank in Asia or Europe that generates real economic profit.
The Mind Of A Wealth Management CEO -Three Challenges They Must Address
getty As wealth management CEOs and executives come up for air after an insanely volatile and unpredictable start to the year, many would do well to reflect on the challenges ahead. While wealth managers should be commended for quickly shifting their workforce to a remote environment at the onset of the pandemic, rapidly engaging clients in new virtual ways and safeguarding clients’ portfolios during these uncertain times we see three larger challenges they must address: 1.
Can The Capital Markets Save Your Favorite Corner Store? Innovating For Real Solutions In Todays Markets
getty Uncertainty has abounded in financial markets over the last few months, but one thing is becoming clear - many companies cannot borrow their way out of this particular economic crisis. That is why the world’s major stewards of capital, whether they are investment banks, private equity players or asset management firms, are busy adjusting to a third phase of the credit cycle: equity financing.
Reinvention Required: Five Steps That Asset Managers Should Take Now
Getty As the entire financial services industry deals with the continued response from the Covid-19 pandemic, asset managers, in particular, are facing a time of significant and lasting change. They can emerge from this crisis stronger and more resilient, but only if they can improve their agility, reimagine their operating models and provide products that truly resonate in the marketplace. It’s widely known that asset managers were facing significant headwinds before Covid-19 occurred.
In The Digital Age, A Wealth Manager's Best Sales Tool Is Being Human
Getty The job of finding, serving and distributing individuals’ wealth is less lucrative than it used to be, and it’s reasonable to predict that the current economic situation will not improve the situation. A big part of the problem is the tired and inefficient sales and distribution model that the industry relies on to sell products and services to the mass affluent, a market that is worth close to $10 trillion in the U.S. alone.
Why Asset Managers Should Keep The ESG Momentum Going
Getty In light of the Covid-19 pandemic, there are plenty of concerns about the future—including the Wealth and Asset Management industry’s commitment to environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) objectives in the investment process. ESG skeptics might think that the cause would melt in the face of the current crisis, but its proponents argue that the adversity might force businesses to scrutinize their values and purposes even more closely.
Charting A Course For Capital Markets Post-COVID-19
© 2017 Bloomberg Finance LP The COVID-19 pandemic is a profound health and humanitarian crisis that fundamentally challenges the financial and operational agility of the global Capital Markets industry. But truth be told, the seeds of turmoilfor capital markets firms were planted long before COVID-19 led to what could very well be the greatest recession since the Great Depression.
Commentary: Can the average asset manager survive the coming winter?
The asset management industry faces an unforgiving environment. True, asset management is one of the few reliably profitable patches of the financial services marketplace, and institutional firms remain formidable stewards of capital. But there is a certain species of firm that can't afford to rest on its laurels: the average asset manager.
What Lies Ahead: The Top Trends That Will Reshape Wealth Management in 2020
What a turbulent start to a new decade! Geopolitical tensions, climate change, volatile markets—how relevant are investor’s financial New Year’s resolutions for the environment we find ourselves in today? I believe that wealth managers need to help their clients find some financial calm in this increasingly unpredictable world by giving clients the advice they crave. We think the top trends reshaping wealth management all come back to modernizing advice for today’s world.
Growing Wealth Intelligently
The outlook for wealth managers should feel rosy, in theory. After all, the demographics of wealth are promising.
What’s in Store for Investment Banks Through 2022?
Accenture’s latest analysis, our Capital Markets Vision 2022, shows a highly diverse picture of investment bank performance and outlook. Yes, the top four investment banks (all generating above $20bn in revenue and all US domiciled) are creating significant economic profits and thus shareholder value. And yes, profitable niches do exist further down the scale for banks in the $1-5 billion in revenue range. But the rest? The truth is that most of them are failing to generate their cost of capital.
2019 Wealth Management Trend Watch
It’s been said so much that it’s almost cliché, but the wealth management industry is being disrupted in ways we’ve never seen before. From robo-advice, to changing client expectations due to demographic shifts, firms are finding themselves having to transform their business models not just to keep up—but to remain viable. I am sure you’re hearing a lot of commentary on wealth management trends as we enter 2019.
What Will Financial Advisors Look Like in the Future? Maybe it's the DMSV Model
It opens with a sincere handshake, followed by a face-to-face conversation that's punctuated by an easy, open dialogue, ending with a sense of mutual satisfaction and purpose. The client leaves, seemingly looking upwards towards the future with a renewed sense of purpose and relief, while the advisor returns to a large desk, ready to get to work and tackle tough problems. What am I talking about? Wealth managers' advertisements. What's striking?
Who the winners are in the implementation of the DOL fiduciary rule
I was helping my son with his homework last week, and we were talking about the meaning behind Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken." It was fascinating and honestly refreshing to hear his interpretation of the poem's meaning — and the logic behind how he arrived there. His studies aside, I found striking similarities between the choices presented to the reader and the strategies leveraged by asset and wealth managers with respect to implementing the Department of Labor's fiduciary rule.
Robo-advisers can have a positive influence on clients' financial literacy
The robo model of investing is very much on the industry's mind these days, prompting plenty of questions. How can investment firms and advisers best use automated investing technology? Will a robo approach threaten the traditional personal advisory relationship? Could it actually render the adviser irrelevant? I'd like to include in this discussion another crucial player: the client. The potential benefits of robo investing to client financial literacy are abundant.
Alternative investments combined with fee-based services are changing the investing world
The growing popularity of alternative investments is having a profound impact on investment firms and the growing practice of fee-based advisory services. And it's not just alternative specialists who are affected but the entire asset-management landscape, from traditional wirehouses to private banks and platform providers. Firms would be wise to embrace a fuller mix of services to satisfy today's investors and differentiate themselves from other asset-management firms.
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