Michael Metelits
Financial institutions have become highly complex and diversified creatures. The good old days when a bank, a stockbroker and a lawyer were the only requirements of upper- middle class and corporate financial security are long gone.
Replacing the old holy trinity are tax analysts, insurance consultants, corporate and personal finance advisers, bankers of various stripes, hedging and derivatives “rocket scientists”, and other ecclesiastical officials of the church of financial technology.
Presumably all these high-priced soothsayers earn their fees by providing value, but in these days of insurance firms that invest your premiums, unions that invest your dues, and financial firms that compete to provide “one-stop” solutions to all financial needs, figuring out what they actually do has become difficult.
What, for example, does your stockbroker do? Of course that depends on what you want them to do, but brokers tend to come in two basic flavours – institutional and retail.
Institutional brokers cater for the corporate community. Their clients tend to be large firms, pension funds, investment funds and often other broking firms, according to Phumzile Mamjezi, an analyst at ING Barings Johannesburg. They provide a range of services, a symptom of the increasing complexity of the financial world.
The core function of brokers is to buy and sell securities on behalf of their clients. They are classic middlemen. They maintain accounts with the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, the Bond Exchange of South Africa and the South African Futures Exchange. These accounts consist of cash and securities put up with the exchanges to assure that the brokers can meet any liabilities should they lose vast amounts of your, or their, money.
Institutional brokers take orders from their clients, and execute the buys and sells on the relevant exchanges, saving the clients the trouble of conducting all their business directly. They may maintain an equities desk for shares, a bond desk, and often a derivatives or hedging desk, where esoteric instruments are traded.
In addition, institutional brokers conduct research for their clients, highlighting trends in the economy and hot securities, according to Mamjezi. They also provide “corporate advisory” services, evaluating the capital structure, debts and assets of a firm, and suggesting various ways to improve that capital position. Often these solutions involve restructuring and structured loan facilities, in which a large group of investors can contribute to lending a firm money, spreading the risks and rewards.
Retail brokers operate on a smaller scale. They also execute buys and sells for clients, predominantly individuals, and conduct research for their clients and subscribers.
Mamjezi identifies some of the largest institutional brokers as banks, notably FirstRand and Nedcor, as well as Investec, Coronation, Gensec and Durolink. These are all diversified groups which provide a wide range of financial services, of which traditional broking is one.
Executing buys and sells is a small part of how these firms handle their corporate clients’ needs. Institutional and retail brokers also trade “on their own account”, or use their own money to play the market. Obviously, insider trading rules prevent them from acting on exclusive knowledge.