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Aapryl and Zephyr: Elevating Investment Decisions with Data-Driven Insights
6th April 2026 • Adjusted for Risk • Ryan Nauman
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From Lake Tahoe, Zephyr market strategist Ryan Nauman hosts Zephyr’s Adjusted for Risk Podcast with Aapryl's Bill Himpele and Cesar Gonzales to discuss why allocators should move beyond backward-looking performance reporting toward skill-based analytics. They explain that much apparent outperformance is driven by cyclical market and style exposures rather than repeatable manager skill, and describe Aapryl’s peer-relative methodology, including style-adjusted “passive portfolio” clones that separate exposure from skill and break skill into stock selection, timing, and consistency. The episode highlights Aapryl metrics such as the Aapryl Score (rank 1–5) and expected alpha, supported by ongoing quarterly testing and machine learning to form a forward-looking view. They also cover the Zephyr–Aapryl partnership embedding Aapryl analytics in the Zephyr dashboard, including coverage of SMA managers via Zephyr’s PSN database, to improve diligence, communication, transparency, and decision accountability.

Learn more about Zephyr and investment risk management here.

Learn more about Aapryl here.

00:00 Welcome to the Podcast

01:15 Meet Bill and Cesar

03:46 Why Skill Beats Performance

07:30 Advisor and Allocator Impact

09:31 Aapryl Score and Expected Alpha

11:51 Peer Groups and Return Based Analysis

15:09 Zephyr Aapryl Partnership

20:26 Who Benefits and SMA Coverage

24:48 Transparency and Evidence Based Testing

27:57 Wrap Up and Where to Learn More

Connect with Ryan Nauman:

LinkedIn

Transcripts

Speaker:

Let's go.

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Ryan: Hello everyone and welcome to

zephyr's adjusted for Risk Podcast

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from the shores of Lake Tahoe.

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I'm Ryan Amman, the market

strategist here at Zephyr.

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Like so many other aspects within the

wealth management space, the different

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ways allocators and wealth managers

can analyze investment strategies.

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managers has evolved.

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One can look at the underlining

holdings or focus on return streams

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to uncover performance behavior.

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Well, I am lucky to have on two

industry experts who can help

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us understand the different

approaches and what they believe.

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Might be the more superior approach.

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But first, today's episode is sponsored

by the award-winning Zephyr, which

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helps investment professionals

make more informed investment

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decisions on behalf flare clients.

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Alright, I've already talked enough.

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Let's go ahead and move on

to the stars of the show.

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I am honored.

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I'm very excited to welcome Bill

Hemley and she Cesar Gonzalez.

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Bill is the Director of Product

and account Management, and Cesar

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is the lead client consultant.

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At April, both of them

from April, and Cesar.

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Thank you so much for coming on.

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Really, it's an honor to have you on.

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I've known you guys for some time, Cesar.

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We've worked together in the past

and some content in the past.

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It's gonna be a great conversation.

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Really excited about it.

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You know, Kim you please tell us a

little bit more about yourself in April.

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Let's go ahead and start with you, bill.

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Bill Himpele: So thank you very

much, Ryan, for having us on today.

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We're, we're certainly excited and

proud to, to, to speak with you here.

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So I am the Director of

Product management in April.

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I've been in the industry for

about 20 years in, in with

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investment management technology.

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And I lead the product strategy for our

April platform and the April platform

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Decomposes manager performance to

try to find repeatable skills like

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stock selection or factor timing.

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Using peer, relative attribution

trying to help allocators see,

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you know, beyond just the raw

returns to try to identify a skill.

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Ryan: Fantastic.

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Cesar Gonzales: I'm Cesar Gonzalez.

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I've been in the industry for 35 years

as an allocator, as a manager researcher.

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So the perspective that I provide as

we talk to Zephyr user is how can you

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use it from a, allocation perspective,

how do you use it to tell your

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prospective clients how to use you?

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So I work closely with clients, our

consultants as a managers who are

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trying to explain their performance in

a way that is credible and actionable.

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You know, what we see consistently is the

traditional tools tells you what happened,

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but not why it happened in a way that

you can really rely on going forward.

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So.

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April fills that gap by helping clients

isolate through skill, communicate it

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clearly, whether that's in a manager

selection, client reporting, or due

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diligence efforts, nice to see you again.

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Ryan.

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Ryan: That's fantastic, Cesar

and Bill, thank you for that.

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And Cesar, real quickly, I am glad you.

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You brought that up about, know,

just the behavior and you know,

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the manager, what the Yeah.

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How they're doing it

and, and the scale too.

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How are they outperforming,

I think it's very important.

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And why do you think it's important

to move from more of the performance?

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reporting to skill-based

analytics when explaining a

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manager's performance behavior.

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What's the difference between the two?

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The, the performance only reporting

or in the skill-based analytics?

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Cesar Gonzales: Ryan,

that's a good question.

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So when we look at performance

only reporting, that only

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tells you the outcome.

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So it's backward looking.

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It doesn't tell you what caused them.

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The problem is that most outperformance

is actually driven by market and

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style exposure, not manager skill.

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And those exposure are cyclical in nature.

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So what looks like a top manager

in one period often doesn't

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persist in the next period.

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So using skill-based analysis

changes that by asking a different

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question, did the manager do beyond

the exposure they were taking?

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So that as an allocator.

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will pay the the alpha fee,

not for a beta exposure.

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Ryan: Bill, do you have

anything to add there too?

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Bill Himpele: Yeah, that's exactly right.

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That's exactly right.

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We found that a lot of the traditional

metrics are not very persistent.

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Um, in, in some cases they're,

you know, they say the, the best

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way to find a five star manager

in 36 months is to look for a.

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Three star manager today.

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Um, and so that's, that's why we're

looking to, to, to sort of move

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towards the skill-based metrics rather

than just that, that raw performance

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or identifying what happened.

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We want to try to find what will happen.

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Ryan: I love that.

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And Cesar, you mentioned it before too,

I always talk about, you know, it's

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easy to ask, you know, like how, but

it's why, you brought it up before too.

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I, I always, I always have questions.

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And it's always around the why.

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Why did something happen?

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Why did you do that?

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Or a lot of people ask me, Ron,

why in the world did you do that?

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I don't know most of the time

why I did something, but like,

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why did the manager outperform?

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Sure they outperformed,

that's great, but why?

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And is that outperformance consistent?

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Are they gonna be able to do it again?

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And I think it's the why part of it.

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You brought it up perfectly and

and that's the most important part.

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In the

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Cesar Gonzales: So.

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. If you, if you think of it, you know,

the challenge really is everyone's used

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to looking at the traditional alpha or

peer ranking, and they don't tend to

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be persistent you know, a, a measure

of whether the manager has success.

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So you end up selecting managers

based on what just work.

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Not what likely to work because all the,

you know, the information ratio, all those

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traditional metrics are backward looking.

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Now when you look at skill-based anana

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it shifts the conversation from

who outperformed to who has

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repeatedly you know, have that

process that lead to outperformance.

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So, for example, you know.

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If you identify a good manager, that

would lead to better manager selection,

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better portfolio construction, and,

and ultimately fewer surprises when

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the market condition changes because

now you are trying to find the best

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manager or the one that has a higher

probability of outperforming for

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a particular role in the portfolio

instead of just hiring a manager.

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And expecting them to perform in all

types of markets, all types of styles.

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The April Analytics allows you to go

more refined in evaluating whether

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that meander has skill or not.

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Ryan: Bill, so let's, turn the page here.

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Why does the shift to skills-based

analytics matter to, like you guys said,

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like to advisors and allocators, the

people that are making the decisions

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on what managers to use, and said,

we're so used to looking all of our

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analytics for the most part that we're

accustomed to, whether it's information

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ratio alpha, it's backwards looking.

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Why is this shift important

to advisors and allocators?

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Bill Himpele: I think it's important

because we need to, to sort of find

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out, like Cesar just said, you know,

who has the best process, who, you

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know, when the market conditions

change, uh, and, and a manager who

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was in favor is no longer in favor.

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You still need that, that exposure

for, for that type of style.

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So you still want to have a manager

that may not be in favor, but you need

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the manager who's gonna outperform

the other managers of that style.

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So we need to find managers.

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Who are going to outperform their peers.

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And so the skill is, or the, the,

the task is to find the managers

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with the best skill, regardless

of the market conditions.

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So I think that's sort of the reason

why we, why we are, are shifting

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the look to the skill as opposed

to just those, you know, who's

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outperforms their, their benchmark.

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Ryan: Yeah.

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Cesar Gonzales: and we start that

really by fixing the benchmark problem.

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Instead of comparing a manager

to a generic index, we build

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that style adjusted clone,

which we call passive portfolio.

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That reflects the manager actual.

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Investments that leads us to isolate

what portion of the return came from

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exposure versus what came from skill.

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And from there we can break

skill into three components.

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You know, stock selection, their

timing, their consistency, and and

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that would allow us to really test

which of those persist over time.

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And in the end, we derive a forward

looking view on the manager skill, not

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just a description of past performance.

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Ryan: Perfect.

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And that's a perfect segue.

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Cesar is, you know, how does April address

this shift to skill-based analytics?

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You talked or you mentioned, like I said.

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You know, information ratio, it's a

great statistic, measures consistency

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and are you outperforming, are you you

know, offsetting that fee the manager's

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charging, but also there's other

statistics that are backwards looking.

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there certain statistics that you use

that might be more forward looking or

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are they more, like you said, based

on skill and other just analytics that

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you look and the returns that might

help you forward looking analytics?

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Cesar Gonzales: Yeah.

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So one of the key metrics we have is

the April score, which is rank one to

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five, one being the best, meaning that

three years forward, we're predicting

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that this particular manager relative to

their peer group, has a higher likelihood

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of outperforming, is a aggregation of

different skill metrics where we look at

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each individual category, and depending on

the category, it'll favor as a indicator.

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Either it's a consistency metrics,

which is a, a modified batting average,

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or it could be the edge, which is you

know, the magnitude of outperformance.

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And depending on what.

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It's showing us what's triggering

managers, know, three years

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forward is what that measure

will try to em to emphasize.

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And there's machine learning behind it.

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So what will happen now as an alligator

is you, at the at the manager, you

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look at their April score and then

you say, okay, I made a beta bet and

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I wanna be in this particular segment.

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Should I waste my time in

evaluating, interviewing meanders

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that are below three, or should

I focus my energy on those that

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have a score of 1, 2, 1, or two?

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So it becomes an efficiency tool as at

same time it allows you to more refine

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and compare the managers relative to

the o other options that you have.

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Ryan: Bill, do you have

anything to add there?

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I think it's very important to do, like,

you know, that peer comparison, right?

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Because a standalone.

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or four or five, yes, it means

something, but it means so much more

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when you're comparing it to its peers.

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Bill Himpele: Yeah, and that's

foundational to the April methodology.

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Everything is, is

essentially peer relative.

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Because you know, we, you know,

you typically have already made a

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decision on the type of manager that

you're looking to allocate towards.

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So what matters now is, okay, which

manager does better than their peers?

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Um, and so everything, all of our

metrics, all of our skill rankings.

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And ratings are all very much

relative to a peer group.

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And we have a, a much more

objective peer group too.

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You know, we don't just take,

you know, our data feed and say,

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okay, this manager has assigned

themselves into peer group A or B.

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Um, we actually objectively we'll reassign

managers to a peer group if we feel that

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their actual performance dictates that.

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So it's a little bit more objective than

just the standard peer group as well.

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Ryan: And you.

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Cesar Gonzales: And.

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Ryan: Yeah, go ahead, Cesar.

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Cesar Gonzales: The other

data that's unique to April

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is the April expected alpha.

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So using kind of all the backward

looking, you're just stating what's the

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excess return analyst, excess return

of this manager from a, you know, a

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period of time we're projecting what

we believe this manager can produce.

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As an alpha going forward.

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So that's kind of connected

to the April score.

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There's a a given April expected

alpha, and this is helpful for managers

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or, or allocators because if the

expected alpha from a manager or for

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the entire group is very minimal.

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Maybe that's, when you say, for this

particular category, I index them.

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But if there's a lot of alpha

opportunities, when you say, okay,

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let me find the best active manager

that would fit what we're looking

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for from a risk return profile.

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Ryan: Yeah, that's great.

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And to go back to Bill, your

universe that you guys create,

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it's return based on return.

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Zephyr does the same thing.

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It's all, you know, it's built on

returns based style analysis to look at

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a manager's behavior versus the holdings.

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I think, especially right now in the

industry where, you know, there's

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a lot of large growth managers

that also produce a dividend sure.

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Valuation metrics.

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They might be on the growth side, but they

sometimes act like a value manager too,

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because of the dividends they produce too.

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So.

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I prefer the returns base

more so than holdings.

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And Holdings is, sorry, how many

mutual funds give you all the holdings?

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Right, right.

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So,

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Bill Himpele: That's exactly right.

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And the, and the data's very,

because the data's very hard to

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get and it's very time consuming.

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Um, what's great about April and what's

great about returns based is that you can

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very quickly you know, pull up a manager

and almost immediately get some insights,

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Ryan: Yeah, versus trying to figure

out exactly what the hold, you know,

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Bill Himpele: right.

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Ryan: are and that's what's great about

separately managed accounts even ETFs

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or is that more, more transparency.

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So maybe holdings space is a little bit

more efficient there, but in terms of

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mutual funds, returns based is, so much

more efficient, like you said, timely.

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So speaking of that, and Zephyr and

April the two firms recently made

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news about a strategic partnership.

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Bill, can you please tell us a little

bit more about that partnership?

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Bill Himpele: We're

really excited about this.

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Um, so I guess it was early January,

um, we began to embed some of our

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analytics into the Zephyr dashboard.

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And that's an overall strategy

that we have is to take April.

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Obviously we have our standalone

April platform you know, which is

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a, a subscription-based, web-based

platform, but, uh, our strategy

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as of late has really been to

meet the users where they are.

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Right?

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Where is the research being done?

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It's being done in Zephyr, right?

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So let's, let's take

our analytics and, um.

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And embed them where the

advisors and allocators are doing

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their, their manager analysis.

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And so what we've done is we've taken

our skill metrics some of the ones

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that Cesar had mentioned, and uh,

you can go into the Zephyr dashboard

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now and pull up a manager and see

what type of skill ratings they have.

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And it helps to compliment with the,

the, the research that's already being

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done, the performance analytics that

that users are already seeing in Zephyr.

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Now this is sort of another layer

that they can put on top of that.

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Um, you know, and, and our

goal is not to necessarily

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replace tools out there, right?

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I mean, I.

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As we all know, the, the world of FinTech

is very deep rooted and it's very hard

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to, to, you know, it's very hard to get

into the game of saying, Hey, stop using

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this product and start using this one.

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And so our goal is to, like I said,

meet users where they are embed our, our

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analysis and other tools where they are,

they're in Bloomberg, they're using fin

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searches, they're obviously in Zephyr.

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And so that's why these partnerships

for us make a lot of sense to, uh, to

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help add that layer on top of just, you

know, the traditional metrics as well.

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So yeah, we're really, really excited

about the partnership with Zephyr.

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And we've had a lot of interest and,

and a lot of, you know, users really,

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really benefiting from this as well.

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Ryan: Cesar, did you have

anything to add there?

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Cesar Gonzales: Nope.

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I think he explained it

well, and, and, and we.

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You know, we've worked with a lot

of managers and you know, many of

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them are long-term users of Zephyr.

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I am one of them too.

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Early user.

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It's, it's a good compliment to what

you already have clients wants to

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go deeper and do a more precise due

diligence on a product or a manager.

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Ryan: Yeah, that's exactly right.

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And I was gonna bring that up.

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Caesar, you, you stole the words from me.

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It, it's a great compliment and I

often tell people in the research

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and content that you want a full

story of that investment manager,

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that strategy, that product, and.

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Yes, looking at the back we're, you

know, doing a back test, looking

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at Alpha, how it's performed during

different time periods, rolling returns.

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Yes.

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That gives you a good, good story

around that performance and you

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know, the behavior of a manager.

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But now with April, we

are also very excited.

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Well, because it just adds

another layer to that story.

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help you understand, the performance and

the behavior of a manager and forward

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looking, because at the end of the

day, guys, what's most important is the

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fin, the end client, the end investor

meeting, their investment objectives.

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And we often say we help

investment professionals make more

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informed investment decisions.

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Well, this just helps them.

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Make more informed investment

decisions and we're excited about it.

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I know, I'm really excited.

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I use it all the time to just kind of

get a better understanding of, of a

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manager moving forward in the forward

looking because we're always trying to

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figure out that forward looking piece.

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So good stuff.

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Bill Himpele: and on top of that, you

know, we, we've really been focusing a lot

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on the allocators and doing the research

on managers for manager selection, but

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managers themselves are also finding

this to be pretty helpful as well.

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Um, whether it be for a marketing,

you know, as a marketing tool.

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But also as a check on themselves

from a style perspective to see are

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they doing what they're, what they

say that they're doing, and how do

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they compare versus their peers.

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Ryan: Yeah.

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I think that's very important is

you said it Bill, are they doing

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what they're supposed to be doing?

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They've got

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Bill Himpele: Exactly.

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Ryan: out there.

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The investment objectives, are they

really following that investment

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objective or is that behavior.

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More like a growth fund

instead of a value fund.

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Bill Himpele: Right.

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Ryan: Very important.

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Cesar Gonzales: it really allows for

a more transparent and more credible

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conversation on both sides and in,

in our own personal experience.

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It reduces the amount of time

you have to to a client what

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happened to your performance.

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So that's where April is helpful,

whereas, you know, the traditional

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measure to say what happened here,

you're actually guiding them on how to

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evaluate and how to set up expectations,

you know, using the April insights.

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Ryan: Yeah, expectations are

very important right now.

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So, and you talked about transparency.

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We're gonna talk about transparency

shortly, Cesar, but real quickly, let's

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go back to the allocators and managers.

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How does this partnership with Zephyr

and April help allocators and managers?

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You guys kind of touched on it, let's

go a little bit deeper and, you know,

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how does it, how does it help them?

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Cesar Gonzales: So for allocators,

it really makes their D diligence

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more precise and more efficient.

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can quickly identify which managers are

benefiting from pure exposure versus

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really demonstrating real skills.

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And then for the managers, it helps

them change the communication of

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their performance in instead of,

you know, relying on relative

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performance, they can now exactly say.

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Where their value is coming

from or not coming from.

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And then whether it's stock selection,

timing, or consistency it provides

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a more refined answer to what

happened and what the client should

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expect from this particular manager.

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And as I said earlier, it allows for that

transparency and then it gives the manager

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credibility instead of being viewed as.

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You know, you're making excuse

again because you're a value

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manager and it's a growth market.

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That's why you underperform.

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The insight from April allows you to

communicate what really is happening with

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your portfolio, and at the same time,

what's happening in your peer group,

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because it could be the entire peer

group is having a, a challenging market.

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Like what happened last year.

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Quality growth managers.

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So that insight allows allocators

not to make a knee-jerk reaction of

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terminating that manager, but then pause

and, and understand is there something

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changing within the environment, the

market environment, that just be pulling

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the trigger and terminate a manager

without doing additional research.

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Ryan: Yeah, and, and it goes back

to, you know what Bill was saying,

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the universe as the peer groups.

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How important that is because you

don't want it a, you know, apples to

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Bill Himpele: Right.

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Ryan: comparison, right?

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You wanna make sure you're

comparing the same manager to like

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managers, otherwise your analysis

will get all thrown outta whack.

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Bill, you know, a lot of times, and it's

evolved now, changed a little bit, but.

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When people think of, you know,

investment performance and managers,

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we often, we use managers here at

Zephyr, kind of as a generic term.

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It covers

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Bill Himpele: Yeah.

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Ryan: ETFs, hedge funds,

any type of manager.

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A lot of times we just

think of mutual funds.

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But does April also cover SMA managers?

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You know, Zeffer has a PSN separately

managed account database, which

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is, you know, 40 years old and.

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And one of the best data SMA

databases in the industry in

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terms of data, quality of data.

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Does April analysis

cover SMA managers too?

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Bill Himpele: Absolutely.

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And that's, that's probably one of the

strengths of, of the partnership of this

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integration is that we're actually using

the PSN database for our separately

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managed account in, for, you know,

we, and we've had that partnership.

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Um.

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As a, as a data provider, probably for

about eight, eight or nine years now.

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Um, and so that, as I said, that

is, that is one of the great parts

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about this relationship is that

we're layering our our analytics

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right on top of the SMA database

that already exists within Zephyr.

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So in addition to the ETFs and Mutual.

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Ryan: Yeah, and you know, like I

said, separately managed accounts.

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What's great about 'em,

we're gonna talk about Cesar.

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I'm gonna ask about transparency.

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Brought it up a few times, but the

industry now, especially younger

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generation of investors, they want

transparency in their investments.

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They want to know exactly

what they're holding.

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Mutual funds are hard.

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ETFs are making it easier and

are more transparent, but really

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nothing more transparent than A SMA.

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You know, you're holding

each individual name.

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So we're seeing a lot of popularity

or growth in because of the

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transparency that it offers.

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It's one things that we're talking about

with returns based style analysis is

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maybe you don't need the transparency,

but you have the transparency of holdings.

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The UpToDate returns makes that

analysis much more comprehensive.

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So.

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Cesar, the increased transparency

investment management in the

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evidence-based evaluation

of active management.

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How is April addressing this shift to

transparency and evidence-based evolution

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of or evaluation of active management?

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Cesar Gonzales: Sure.

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So the industry is moving towards

more evidence-based decision making.

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As you know, given the changes in, in

the staffing, the type of skills they

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have, you're seeing more and more quant

managing and leading pension plans.

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But most of those tool that are currently

being used still relies on metrics.

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Metrics that are not predictive.

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So now they're are more open to look

at different ways, like an April

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methodology and really understanding,

you know, is this a good forward

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looking and, and is this that we can

rely on from an efficacy standpoint?

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So what we do is we test

our skill metrics, you know.

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On a quarterly basis, making sure

that we include the entire universe

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of meanders that have reported and

show that manders with stronger

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skill signals are more likely to

outperform over the next three years.

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It's easy to say that, but if you

provide the proof that this is

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something that's getting tested every

quarter, not just based on a back

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test, the confidence level of the,

the new type of investors increases.

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And, and we, we, we start seeing this,

you know, public plans are incorporating

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April as part of their investment process.

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So they're relying on the

insights that April is providing

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to construct their portfolio.

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And this allows them to really look

at being transparent with the manager,

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:

improving the quality of their decisions.

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And at the same time you know.

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Getting themselves accountable

for the decisions that they made.

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'cause with April, if you rely

on the April score, you can

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test it three years later.

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Did I, did I make the right decision?

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And is the system really predictable?

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Ryan: Predictable.

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It's very, very important there.

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Sees our inconsistency, right?

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We often talk about that and talk

a lot about this on the podcast.

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You know, being able to sleep at night and

you know, I feel as if this combination,

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this partnership between Zephyr.

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like we said, they compliment each other.

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Get you that full story regarding

a portfolio manager, a strategy,

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so you can sleep better at night

because it might be more show, more

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:

consistent performance, out performance

and exactly what they're doing.

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Bill, anything that to add at the end?

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Bill Himpele: I think that, I

think Cesar really nailed that.

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And that's, that's very much our

strategy and our, our perspective.

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Ryan: Awesome gentlemen,

great conversation.

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I

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Bill Himpele: Yeah.

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Ryan: about the analytics and you

know, the, the analytics behind the

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performance and telling that story of

a, of a portfolio manager of a strategy.

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I think it's really important and

trying to understand that story.

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It's not just about

returns over a five year.

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10 year time period that just

tells you one piece of the pie.

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Gotta dissect that performance and

understanding that that's what we're

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doing here at Zephyr and April.

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Thank you so much, bill and

Cesar for coming on the show.

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It's an honor.

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Very fun conversation.

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Bill, where can our audience get

more information about April?

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Bill Himpele: You can, you can

either go to our website april.com

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and it's spelled A-A-P-R-Y-L.

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A little, little different.

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You can reach out to [email protected]

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or you can come and visit us at

the AMZ conference down in Naples.

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We'll be there sponsoring.

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So come say hi.

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But yeah, we'd love, or obviously

you can go to the Zephyr dashboard

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as well and find us there.

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Ryan: Fantastic.

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All right gentlemen, thank you

so much and thank you everyone

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for listening to this episode is

Zephyr's adjusted for Risk podcast.

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You can watch all of our other episodes

on the Zephyr YouTube channel and Spotify.

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Please be sure to like and

subscribe to those channels

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:

and give us follow on LinkedIn.

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:

Thank you very much and have

a great rest of your week.

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:

Cesar Gonzales: Okay, you take care.

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