UK – Style Research, the London-based style market research and portfolio analysis company, is to open its first overseas office in Boston, as part of its strategy to move into the American market.

The new office will be headed by Bernie Nelson, who joins from Scottish Widows Investment Partnership, where he was head of portfolio risk and quantitative analysis, and be opened in six months time once Nelson has completed an induction and training programme into Style Research and its methodology.

There are no predetermined number of employees for the office. “It will grow organically as our business there grows,” says George Kallarackal at Style Research, who says that the decision to open an office there and not elsewhere in Europe, even though there has been major growth in their client base there and in the UK, came because of the sheer number of managers and funds in the US and their growing interest in style type analysis.

“We had no marketing base from which to work from in the States and it’s there that we see a lot of worries over opaque risk models and people wanting greater insight into the management of equity portfolios and funds,” he adds.

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