Overview
Global money market and public finance investors face two major challenges: increased credit risk and high volumes. Acuity Knowledge Partners’ public finance and municipal research support addresses these challenges through its bespoke solutioning and nearly two decades of experience in tracking municipal issuers globally.
Public finance and municipal research services
We have nearly two decades of experience in providing support to financial institutions on public finance research – on tax-exempt and taxable munis
Ready access to proprietary credit research templates
Experienced supervisors and sector leaders with extensive experience in covering public finance issuers during the global financial crisis
We provide cost-competitive research solutions to financial institutions of all sizes, including 4 of the top 15 global asset and wealth managers. We set up dedicated teams of credit research analysts to support these clients. These teams work as an extension of our clients’ internal teams, supporting them across the investment research lifecycle – from idea generation to portfolio monitoring to exit. The output produced is customised in line with client requirements and made available for their exclusive use. By leveraging our services, our clients have been able to drive proprietary investment research processes at scale, benefiting from a unique edge that is also sustainable.
Support We Offer
Support We Offer
How we are different
Ready access to skilled talent:
Pool of educated, well-trained, highly skilled analysts who work as an extension of a client team, with the flexibility to ramp up, downsize and/or offer multi-language support and near-shore capabilities, depending on business requirements.
Support bottom-line optimisation:
Clients optimize capacity by assigning time-consuming, non-core tasks and enjoy 40-60% cost savings.
Depth of delivery and industry experience
The analyst are supervisors are well experienced in public finance research and municipal research with an ability to transform portfolio coverage by supporting across the value chain and perform both high-volume, low-end tasks and high-value-add tasks such as bond recommendation.
A range of cross-platform solutions under one umbrella
We offer solutions for public finance research and municipal research process automation using our proprietary automation tools (BEAT), ESG coverage and data science and technology services
Robust compliance and information security controls
Client confidentiality and information security are an integral part of our value system and, as such, are SOC 2 Type II attested, maintaining client confidentiality at the highest industry standards with robust physical, technological and compliance controls.
Acuity can receive payments via soft dollars
Acuity will facilitate the structure for receiving payments from third parties/brokers.
What we have done
Public finance and credit research support to the investment management arm of a large US-based PE firm
What we are proud of
USD1m
of annual cost savings
c.40%
increase in onshore bandwidth
Public finance and taxable credit research support to a large private wealth manager in the US
What we are proud of
USD1.2m
Cost savings since inception
c.35%
Release of onshore bandwidth
Our Perspective on Public Finance & Municipal Research
Meet our experts
Ramesh Punugu
Director, IR
Ramesh has over 19 years of experience in global capital markets – research and investment banking. Prior to joining Acuity Knowledge Partners, Ramesh worked with the offshore research and analytics units of Crisil and iGate, managing sell-side research and investment banking teams for global clients. He started his career as an investment banker at Ind Global Financial Trust (currently part of Ernst & Young’s corporate finance practice in India), advising companies on M&A and capital raising. He holds an MBA and a bachelor’s degree in Technology.
Pradeepa Kuppusubramanian
Director, Fixed Income and Credit Research
Pradeepa has over 13 years of work experience, including 11 years in fixed income and credit research. She heads the fixed income and credit research teams across our global delivery locations. Pradeepa has extensive experience in setting up, scaling, and managing buy-side and sell-side client engagements, and working closely with clients to meet their evolving needs and exceed their expectations. Her asset class expertise includes focus on complex high-yield, distressed and defunct issuers; and US Municipals. Prior to joining Acuity Knowledge Partners, she was an associate in the audit and business advisory wing of PricewaterhouseCoopers. Pradeepa is a Chartered Accountant and holds a bachelor’s degree in Commerce.
Pedro Armstrong
Managing Director, Americas Sales
Pedro Armstrong is a Managing Director at Acuity Knowledge Partners and leads business development efforts in the Americas for the Corporate and Commercial Banking, Buy-side, and Sell-side segments. He is responsible for managing key client engagements and works in partnership with capital market firms to provide customized solutions across research and analytics support, origination and lending support, and marketing and compliance support. He has been with the organization for 12 years, serving in various roles across Sri Lanka, Costa Rica, and now the US. Prior to joining Acuity Knowledge Partners, he was a Central Bank Regulator at the Central Bank of Barbados. Pedro, who is a British Chevening Scholar, holds a Master’s degree (honors) in Banking and International Finance from Cass Business School, City University, London.
Balaji Ramakrishnan
Senior Director, EMEA Sales Head - Banking and Asset Management
Balaji Ramakrishnan leads Europe and Middle East business development for Acuity. Having spent his formative years in core banking technology operations, he brings a deep understanding of credit processes and the ability to make analytics-driven decisions. He works closely with senior client stakeholders as a trusted partner, shaping the business case for scaled efficiencies through centralisation, standardisation and intelligent automation within Commercial Lending and Asset Management verticals.
Balaji has established long-term partnerships with banks, asset managers and insurance firms across a number of front and middle office transformation initiatives over the past 20 years. Prior to Acuity, he worked at Accenture and Oracle, serving European financial services clients. He holds an MBA from the London Business School.
Adrian Wright
Managing Director, Investment Banking, Private Equity and Consulting Business Development
Adrian leads Business Development across Investment Banking, Private Equity and Consulting clients in EMEA and APAC. He has 20 years’ experience working in the financial services industry, having spent 13 years working in Equity Capital Markets for Rothschild and RBS, before moving to Acuity Knowledge Partners in 2013. He has a deep knowledge of financial markets, having originated and executed over USD50bn of ECM transactions across a wide range of sectors, products and geographies. He has extensive experience working with and advising the majority of Investment Banking coverage and product groups, and leading global Private Equity firms. Adrian holds a MA (Hons Oxon) in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from the University of Oxford.
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