Our firm delivers index products, proprietary risk-assessment methodologies, and advanced analytics that are designed to assess geopolitical risks to business operations and technology development. These capabilities support a wide variety of industries, governmental agencies, and participants in asset management. We provide support in understanding and mitigating investment, supply chain, operational, and other risks related to nation-state competition in the economic domain.
We develop and sponsor index products that provide investment exposure to the critical emerging technologies that complement national security and innovation within the US and its partners. The Solactive Whitney US Critical Technologies Index (SOLUCTIN) is designed to capture the modernization priorities and strategic technology interests of the US Government by employing two proprietary algorithms. The first algorithm identifies companies that have one or more business sectors that are engaged in “Critical Technologies” as determined by the US Department of Defense. The second algorithm, the Whitney Geostrategic Risk Ratings (GRR) model, determines whether the companies identified by the first algorithm pose a sufficiently low level of geostrategic risk as to warrant their inclusion in the index portfolio.
The Whitney Geostrategic Risk Ratings (GRR) model quantifies the level of risk that individual companies face as a result of the strategic commercial moves taken by geopolitically adversarial nations and their instrumentalities. Specifically, this model quantifies the competitive steps taken by these adversarial actors in an effort to gain dominance through market growth, corporate acquisitions, strategic partnerships, supply chains, and large-scale R&D investments across targeted industries and geographies. While these companies may not be the direct or obvious targets of nation-state economic campaigns, the business operations of these companies may be subject to previously unforeseen geopolitical risks, not only because of the entanglement of their business function with those of adversarial actors, but also because of the conducting of operations in, with, and through adversarial countries.
With a team deeply experienced in financial and geostrategic analysis, we develop and curate cutting-edge analytics designed to illuminate critical issues and intersections within the commercial, technological and geopolitical domains. Our firm harnesses the power of expert networks, third party research, and proprietary data to provide bespoke analytics that can be used by asset managers to create excess returns and mitigate volatility arising from geopolitical conflict. Additionally, these analytics can deliver insights for individuals and organizations, both governmental and commercial, to mitigate a broad array of risks not captured by traditional Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) or other risk metrics.