Challenges of International Risk Management Paper

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Challenges of International Risk Management

Organizations and markets are going through a particularly bad patch of more volatile

conditions;

The measurement of risk is evolving and an increasingly sophisticated view of what is ‘risk’ is

being applied, sometimes characterised as the new field of risk budgeting; a new set of legalistic

concerns about risk are emerging.

I’m not sure much has really changed underneath as the key principles in risk management are

largely inviolable. They can be summarised in three key points:

o successful investment involves risk taking so risk management will always be a key success

factor in investment management;

o risk is multi-faceted and means different things to different people, in particular clients define

their risk tolerances in different ways in different markets;

o risk management introduces particular challenges to global portfolios and investment groups

where consistency is critical.

How strong are the global factors? Of course it all comes back to what we mean by ‘global’. The

most obvious sense is an external view – considering the extent to which local market share is

dominated by firms that operate globally. As we look at the top managers by assets under

management, we can find a number who have substantial market share in multiple markets with

service infrastructure in support. But none have top ten positions in all the leading markets.

In asset management though, global characteristics show up more in what the firms

‘manufacture’ and more particularly how they produce their performance – you can see this as an

internal view of globalisation. In pursuit of competitive advantage in managing global portfolios,

some firms have built ambitious plans for the global connectivity of their investment

management processes:

o to apply a common investment philosophy across the world

o to do research the same sort of way

o to have portfolios spring up from a global view of industries in which country factors are

limited

o and to adopt common risk management disciplines that are aligned across all their products.

Risk management has come in for particular attention in this list as it represents the foundation of

many of the investment themes that these groups are pursuing.

Most focus on risk management has been in the analysis of portfolios. Various software

packages have been developed that use past patterns of stock prices to characterise the likely

future risk characteristics of a portfolio going forward. While some of these methods have been

developed in-house, the dominant risk measurement approaches are provided by external

providers. The market leader in this area is the BARRA organisation and it is hard not to think of

BARRA as something of an industry standard such is its penetration.

Much recent attention has focused on the accuracy of current methods. BARRA has been singled

out for particular attention. Much of the criticism of BARRA is based on the recent experiences

in which predicted tracking errors have appeared to be too low and there are concerns that the

measure is a biased estimator. The periods of trending markets when momentum style effects are

in evidence have been the ones when the estimates have been least reliable.

My view is that these estimates do vary in their accuracy over time but that this is not too

surprising. The critical issue is learning to adapt your risk thinking to fit the different phases of

the market. To criticise the risk measurement software for this sort of failing is statistically naïve.

It is better to recognise the considerable extent to which patterns in portfolio performance go

through changing phases and apply more skill to interpreting the risk measurement tools. That is

not to say that research into risk and improved model building should not continue to improve.

But, the principal challenge lies in the interpretation of the risk metrics.

Many global firms are engaged in building more sophisticated risk tools for themselves. Much of

the enormous increase in the IT spending of investment groups has been in risk systems of

various sorts. The challenge has a number of dimensions:

o enhancing portfolio construction

o placing a check on existing risk measurement tools

o covering other broader interpretations of risk, including the risk of non-compliance with

contractual terms.

In addition to the technology involved, these systems bring various cultural challenges.

Investment managers that previously could exist with a more vague idea of risk in their

portfolios, are forced to confront much harder data concerning risk. All of this must be absorbed

into new style portfolio construction processes. It has been a major challenge and has presented a

real competitive edge to those that have adapted best.

While the influence of risk measurement was apparent in the Unilever-Merrill Lynch case, the

discussions there most highlight the importance of more dialogue in risk management issues. The

critical question for every manager to consider is what is the client’s goal? This is not just the

overall performance target – that should be reasonably easy to specify. What both parties find

difficult to express is the appropriate amount of risk in the manager’s approach and an acceptable

distribution of the outcome. Much of the reaction by investment groups to the Unilever case has

focused on the legal aspects. Managers have been keen to gauge whether their client contracts

are OK. It is an understandable line to take but really only scratches the surface of the issue.

The industry needs a better frame of reference for risk. This applies equally to managers and

funds and we see below the best practice points that should be present in manager-fund

relationships.

1. Form a better mutual understanding of risk

Funds need to form a clearer view of what they see as risk following dialogue with managers.

We think the concept of the risk budget is critical to this understanding: that funds should

express how much risk they expect managers to take and give some guidance as to what they

consider an appropriate pay-off for that risk in terms of additional return.

2. Express fund risk preferences in the manager contracts

While it is tempting to retreat from discussing risk in contracts, I think this is short-sighted. In

practice, most agreements will focus on aspirations for risk rather than specific contractual

obligations and with appropriate drafting managers need not fear undue liability risks. While risk

has been handled lightly in most contracts to date, I favour much more detailed attempts to

describe expectations in future versions.

3. Establish better dialogue with managers on risk

Central to the risk dialogue is a quantitative framework for considering risk. The key tool forthis

is the risk budget. But numerical methods have their limitations because risk is complex and fast-

changing. This needs regular discussion and debate between manager and client to provide

qualitative context.

The major challenge in risk management is moving from ad-hoc and unstructured views of risk

to a more coherent and consistent framework. While investment groups have invested

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Challenges of International Risk Management Organizations and markets are going through a particularly bad patch of more volatile conditions; The measurement of risk is evolving and an increasingly sophisticated view of what is ‘risk’ is being applied, sometimes characterised as the new field of risk budgeting; a new set of legalistic concerns about risk are emerging. I’m not sure much has really changed underneath as the key principles in risk management are largely inviolable. They can be summarised in three key points: o successful investment involves risk taking so risk management will always be a key success factor in investment management; o risk is multi-faceted and means different things to different people, in particular clients define their risk tolerances in different ways in different markets; o risk management introduces particular challenges to global portfolios and ...
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Tags: Organizations and markets measurement of risk risk management investment management Global factors