By Mark Macias
Technology has sent the giants falling like dominoes.
Blockbuster Video, Tower Records and others – destroyed after they failed to adapt to technology.
Asset management has remained primarily immune to any major disruptions from technology but that could change soon.
In September 2015, Macias PR hosted a hedge fund and private equity forum where we brought together industry leaders to discuss some of the emerging trends and threats they are seeing in alternative assets. One of the panelists detailed how cyber security is a potential tech disruption to fund managers and predicted it will hit the small and medium sized funds hardest.
But there is another potential disruption that could hit the alternative asset industry. It’s a legislative disruption, called the JOBS Act, which drastically changes the way fund managers find new investors.
I meet hedge fund managers all the time who say they don’t need publicity. But when I ask them: would you want your fund to appear in a Wall Street Journal story? All of them say yes.
One-on-one introductions with investors won’t go away, but now that the JOBS Act allows funds to market themselves to investors via the media, suddenly smart fund managers can reach thousands and even millions of targeted investors with only one news story.
Keep in mind, I’m not talking about advertisements. I’m talking about news stories that appear inside the influential financial publications, like the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal and Institutional Investor Magazine.
Here’s an infographic that takes a closer look at why PR is positioned to disrupt the financial industry.
