A fearsome reputation

Cognito has been working with Lionhart, a global, multi-strategy arbitrage hedge fund with $850m AUM, for over a year. Lionhart first approached Cognito to help raise their profile with the investor community and to strengthen their brand globally. Cognito was initially engaged to run a highly targeted media relations campaign with the goal of increasing Lionhart’s visibility with current and potential investors. This involved the selection of key publications in the hedge fund industry as well as key publications in the broader business press. In conjunction with Lionhart, a messaging session was held to extract and distil Lionhart's distinctive messages. A 'media tour' was then conducted with Lionhart’s spokespeople meeting key senior financial journalists from each publication. Interviews were also conducted with these spokespeople and a series of thought leadership pieces were developed.

Once these bases were covered, the campaign started in earnest. Cognito has since concentrated on building a steady stream of media coverage. This has included pieces in the Financial Times, Financial News and Hedge Funds Review.

An Increase in Requests

Lionhart noticed a definite up-tick in information requests since the start of this campaign. Greg Froese, head of investor relations at Lionhart, commented, “Consistently, after we feature in an article that Cognito has pitched to publications, we will have an increase in the number of requests for information about our funds.”

The increased interest in Lionhart’s funds prompted them to look at how they approached investors and at their marketing materials. Cognito was engaged to build and design a new website and to develop an interactive investor relations presentation.

Cognito developed a fully content managed site which can be adjusted by someone without technical knowledge. Pages and content can be added simply, documents can be uploaded and archived automatically and various levels of access can be assigned to user groups. The site also allows any interested parties to submit their details online.

The design of the site reflected Lionhart’s global presence, longevity and stability. It needed to be modern, whilst still appealing to a traditionally conservative investor base and to position Lionhart as an established, successful fund.

Marketing Tools

The visual theme from the website was carried through to the investor relations presentation, ensuring that Lionhart presented a consistent image at each stage of the marketing process.

In order to cater for the flexibility that Lionhart required, the template for the presentation was developed in PowerPoint, allowing them to add, delete or hide slides as well as giving a degree of interactivity to the final presentation. The design itself was derived from the website, continuing the global theme and reinforcing Lionhart’s stability and longevity whilst presenting a consistent look and feel to the investor.

Over the course of this integrated campaign, Lionhart has strengthened its reputation, not just within the hedge fund industry, but within the asset management sector generally. Mr Froese comments, “Cognito is pro-active in terms of all areas of our business and helps us stay on track as we interact with the world outside our company walls via the press, our website and our marketing materials.”