Citywire is an independent financial publishing and data group, 25% owned by Reuters. It provides a unique combination of journalistic experience, regulated financial advice and proprietary data.
Citywire has a team of over 80 staff, producing news, investment ideas and recommendations on shares and funds every weekday. Uniquely among financial publishers, many of Citywire's journalists are also registered as investment advisers with the UK Financial Services Authority.
Citywire was founded in 1999 by its Chairman Lawrence Lever, formerly Financial Editor of the Mail on Sunday and Assistant City Editor of the Times. Citywire's Chief Executive is David Turner who was previously at the Financial Times group where he was publisher of all the FT Group's business publications. Richard Lander, Citywire's Editorial Director, was previously at the Times, Independent and Reuters.
What we do
Citywire aims to help you make good decisions about where to invest your money to achieve your aims, with a mix of information, practical advice, analysis, facts and figures, tips and news, all in plain English. We are completely independent of any financial organisation so we can be completely objective.
Our main commercial customers are asset management groups and life assurance companies. These companies are in the business of creating investment products such as unit trusts and oiecs designed for retail investors as well as distributing them through fund supermarkets and other platforms.
On the other side are the potential customers for these products. That could be an independent financial adviser who specialises in investment planning. Or it could be a fund of funds manager looking for the best portfolio choices or a private bank seeking to offer the best choice of funds to their customers. And of course it could be a private investor, seeking the right tools to make informed decisions on where to place his or her money.
How we do it:
Unique Fund and Fund Manager Data.
Citywire offers a range of tools to enable investors to compare the performance of funds and fund managers, which can all be accessed via the following link.
However, Citywire provides much more than simple fund information. Investors can access our unique database of fund manager performance. Our website is the only place you can separate the performance record of individual fund managers from the funds they currently run to see their career performance as a whole.
Our league tables show which individuals are delivering the goods in their respective sectors while the ‘All Rated Manager’ link shows which fund managers are currently rated by Citywire for their risk-adjusted performance.
By clicking on highlighted fund manager names investors can explore Citywire's factsheets which provide performance histories as well as profiles of leading fund managers.
You will also find a new fund and fund manager selection tool. This enables investors to filter down the universe of funds and fund managers to find those which meet their own specific criteria.
Great News
The best data in the world always needs context. That is why Citywire has a news team of more than 28 highly talented journalists providing everything from news about fund manager moves and the state of the markets to interviews with the best fund managers and analysis of what they are buying and selling.
We also have popular daily news features aimed at saving investor’s valuable time and keeping them ahead of the game, such as our newspaper summaries.
Lastly, if it's scoops and exclusive news you're after, you can always be reassured that Citywire strives to be ahead of the pack in reporting breaking news.
Bringing People Together
Too much information, too little time to absorb it? Citywire helps people get information they need how, when and where they need it. Here are some of the ways we do it:
Online
Our flagship website, www.citywire.co.uk, provides news throughout the working day along with all the data you need to make investment decisions, from Fund Manager Ratings and Rankings to factsheets, and an archive of stories going back to 1999.
We have 4 distinct editions, tailored towards users’ different needs:
Personal Investors: This is the one for private investors or those interested in planning their retirement; tailored to encourage users to take a closer look at their investments and savings and also to seek quality advice from professional financial planners.
Wealth Managers: This edition is for investment advisers, wealth managers and stockbrokers whose main focus is choosing the right investments for their clients.
New Model Adviser®: This edition is for the growing community of financial advisers seeking to modernise and professionalise their businesses around holistic financial planning, and is produced by the team behind New Model Adviser magazine.
European Fund Selectors: A website for international fund selectors from the team behind Citywire Fund Selector magazine, covering over 4,100 managers and more than 10,000 European funds
Offline
We publish a range of magazines for advisers and fund selectors including the weekly New Model Adviser® and new Citywire Wealth Manager to Citywire Fund Selector for European fund selectors. For more details about what we can offer, please contact George Ball here or on +44 (0)20 7840 2277.
Customised Publishing
We provide many leading financial groups with customised content, both online and offline, to reach targeted audiences about specific subjects that interest them. To find out more please contact Daniel Russell here or on +44 (0)20 7840 2251.
We also have RSS newsfeeds available across the website, which users can implement on their desktops, or even upload to their website.
Face to face
People love our events because they break the mould. Lectures on why you should buy fund X or Y are out; challenging discussions and arguments where fund providers and selectors get to grips with the issues are in. For more details about what we can offer, please contact George Ball here or on +44 (0)20 7840 2277.
What others think:
Awards
In 2005, 2006 and 2007, leading British independent financial advisers said www.citywire.co.uk was their top online destination for independent financial advisers. A poll of delegates attending the 2007 Pims conference showed that 59% listed www.citywire.co.uk as a website they had read in the previous seven days. Citywire also holds the 2005, 2006 and 2007 IMA Team Award for Excellence in Investment Writing.
Customers
We earn our money through sponsorship, advertising and the licensing of our data and are proud that we can count almost every significant life group and fund management business in Britain among our customers. To quote Rob Page, marketing director of New Star Asset Management: ‘We license the Citywire Fund Manager Ratings because they have quickly become an important part of the fund selection process for the key distributors of funds.’
Internationally our business continues to expand rapidly and in 2006 Fidelity, already a customer in Britain; licensed our fund manager data in five European countries.
Readers
Our online and offline publications reach key audiences. Financial advisers and fund selectors use our websites and magazine consistently and regard our news and data as integral parts of their business process. As Richard Philbin, leading multimanager at F&C Asset Management puts it: ‘Investing without research is like playing poker blind. Citywire stacks the odds in your favour.’
Our online audience also features large numbers of well-informed high net worth individuals who are proving attractive to our growing band of non-financial advertisers.
For further information about our audiences and ways of reaching them, George Ball here or on +44 (0)20 7840 2277.
Media
The Financial Times, The Daily Telegraph, Handelsblatt, Cinco Dias, Milano Finanza, Gestion de Fortune.
These are just some of the leading European national newspapers and financial publications that regularly feature Citywire’s fund manager Ratings and Rankings and news. Why? Because we can give them the in-depth information that their readers want to know.
Our background and some key facts
Citywire was set up in 1999 by Lawrence Lever, one of Britain’s leading and most experienced financial journalists.
Reuters, the world’s leading financial information group, bought a 25% stake in 2001. Most of the other shares are held by the company’s founding investors and the people who work here.
Citywire is authorised to give investment advice by the Financial Services Authority. Many of our journalists and researchers are also authorised in their own right. Our fund manager performance data is independently audited and verified by AKG Actuaries and Consultants Ltd, a leading firm of actuaries.
Want to find out more?
Contact Citywire on 0207 8405100 or support@citywire.co.uk with any enquiries.