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Case Interactive Media was established by Jim Casella & Austin Ventures' Growth Equity partners. They have formed a team to focus on growth equity/private equity... (More)

Planning for 2010 III: Global Allocations for the Optimist: 50/50 or 33/33/33
By Avi Nachmany, Director of Research, Strategic Insight

What are the critical issues facing the mutual fund industry in 2010 and beyond? The following post is the third of a three-part series inspired by Strategic Insight's recently published forecast for the mutual fund industry, "Looking Ahead to 2010." Here, SI Director of Research Avi Nachmany questions the right mix for global asset allocation in an investor's portfolio. Already published is Part I, looking at concerns surrounding bond mutual funds, and Part II, discussing stock mutual funds and the character of America.

Read the entire article...

Read part 1 of this three-part series
Read part 2 of this three-part series

Revisiting Dubai (S)Inc. by Kip McDaniel, Editor-in-Chief, ai5000

Yesterday’s news of Dubai World asking for a six-month reprieve on $60 billion in debt repayments has sent global financial markets into a downfall not seen in many months. It should not have: The Emirate’s troubles are not a surprise — many observers, including ai5000, have been warning of trouble at Dubai World for months now.

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Asset International Agrees to Acquire Strategic Insight

Research Provider to Mutual Fund, Retirement Income and Wealth Management Industries Worldwide

NEW YORK, July 29, 2009 - Asset International, Inc. ("AI") has agreed to acquire Strategic Insight ("SI"), a research and technology firm serving the investment management industry. SI will join Asset International's other prominent industry brands, including PLANSPONSOR, PLANADVISER, Global Custodian, ai5000, and The Trade.

New York-based Strategic Insight provides competitive research and business intelligence to more than 200 financial services organizations worldwide, across the mutual fund, retirement income and wealth management industries. SI clients oversee nearly 90% of the US mutual fund industry's $11 trillion of assets and also include more than 60 of the world's largest fund managers outside the US.

Asset International CEO Jim Casella will become the new CEO of Strategic Insight, succeeding SI's pioneering founder, Joel Rosenthal, 70, who has announced his retirement. Read the full press release...

Austin Ventures Invests $20 Million More In Casella’s Asset International
paidContent.org, July 7, 2009
Austin Ventures has invested about $20 million more in Asset International, the B2B online/print financial information provider headed by Jim Casella, the former CEO of Reed Business U.S. The company confirmed the new funding to me, after an SEC filing on it came out yesterday. This is in addition to the funding AV put in it late last year, which wasn’t disclosed but was from the $50 million it committed to the platform in 2007, when it first teamed up with Casella. Read the entire article...

Exclusive Invitation: Be Part of an Elite Global Investor Community—ai5000 I want to invite you, as part of the exclusive group of asset owners that drive today's global investment world, to take advantage of a new digital publication focused solely on the issues you consistently face. ai5000, developed and published by Asset International—a leading source of insight and guidance to institutional investors for more than 20 years—is free to you via this invitation. CLICK HERE FOR YOUR COMPLIMENTARY SUBSCRIPTION

CLICK HERE TO SEE INSIDE

The Field General
As we approach Super Sunday, most of us have had our teams bow out early. After a surprising win over the Patriots two years ago, the Giants did not even make the playoffs this year. Dallas won their first playoff game but exited the next week when they came up against Brett Favre and the Vikings. The Patriots are starting to show their age and the lack of top-quality draft picks, due to their three Super Bowl rings in the last decade, has not helped. (More)

Cool the Populist Rhetoric
The amount of populist rhetoric coming from both sides of the political aisle in the U.S. has been escalating over the past several weeks. Sarah Palin has been out on the talk show circuit promoting her book, Going Rogue, and has certainly continued her approach of appealing to her base's populist sentiment. Meanwhile, President Obama has once again renewed his attack on our banks and bankers in reaction to Senator-elect Scott Brown’s surprising victory in Massachusetts. (More)

Still the Right Position: A Second Term for Ben
With one week left in Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke’s first term, a sense of unease rattled the stock markets yesterday as several Democratic Senators (Boxer & Feingold) announced that they would not support President Obama’s nomination of Chairman Bernanke for a second term. I wrote "A Second Term for Ben" in late August and shortly thereafter the president nominated him for a second term. I stand by my original position: Chairman Bernanke has earned a second term. (More)

TARP Payback: Act II
As we closed out calendar year '09, our largest financial institutions were able to end a very difficult chapter of the Great Recession by paying back their TARP funds. These funds were paid back with interest and the federal government realizing an additional return through warrant coverage. This signified that our financial system was on the road to recovery. (More)

The Godfather & Jobs
After a U.S. jobs report from the Labor Department showed modest gains in November, last Friday's report for December showed a loss of another 85,000 jobs. We also learned on Friday that the Eurozone's unemployment rate has now joined the U.S. at 10%+. These unemployment rates remain stubbornly high, in spite of the fact that both economies grew in the second half of '09. (More)

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The MutualFundWire.com has named Strategic Insight's Director of Research, E.V.P. Avi Nachmany
to its list of Forty Most Influential People in Fund Distribution

The list is based on nominations from the industry and our editorial staff. The final list was selected based on imput from those executives nominated for the list and an analysis of objective criteria including the net flows into each fund complex, total fund assets under management and votes from other nominees. Read the full press release...

Slowdown at the merge
(This article was originally written for BtoB Media Business at BtoBonline.com.) There are three rules for evaluating real estate: location, location, location. And there are three rules for acquiring b-to-b media: timing, timing, timing.For Asset International, which is part of a $950 million Austin Ventures private equity fund, the timing of the down b-to-b media M&A market isn't working out so badly. “Timing has a lot to do with this,” acknowledged Jim Casella, chairman-CEO of Asset International, a media company focused on the global financial industry. (More)

Dow Jones/LBO Wire
Austin-Backed B2B Platform Asset International Buys 2 Cos.
Austin Ventures-backed B2B publisher Asset International Inc. has added two more companies to its portfolio, buying Strategic Insight, a research, data and analytics firm; and The Trade Ltd., a London-based provider of news and events for institutional investors.

Read the full article...

The Big Idea 2010
Ten execs discuss what will drive their businesses into the next year.We all know that the top strategic priority this year isn't really "online," or "lead gen" or "events," it's flat-out survival. Planning for the future now means the next fiscal quarter, not the next five years.

Asset International Names Jason Cassidy
Senior Vice President of Strategy and Development
Appointment furthers Asset International's goal to be primary source of specialty content
for global financial services industry

STAMFORD, CT, July 6, 2009 - Asset International, Inc. ("AI") announced that Jason Cassidy has been appointed Senior Vice President of Strategy and Development. He reports to Jim Casella, Chief Executive Officer. In this newly-created position, Mr. Cassidy oversees and implements initiatives consistent with Asset International's goal to be the next-generation media company for the financial services industry. Read the full press release...

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