“The Revolving-Door of Sell-Side Analysts: A Threat to Analysts’ Independence?”
Situation
Ben Lourie, a Ph.D. candidate at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management, published a thesis entitled, “The Revolving-Door of Sell-Side Analysts: A Threat to Analysts’ Independence?” The thesis featured proprietary research concluding the presence of widespread conflict of interest among equity analysts hoping to advance their careers by moving into investor relations positions at companies whose stocks they had been evaluating. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has given FINRA – the largest independent securities regulator in the U.S. – the authority to govern business among brokers, dealers and the investing public. Lourie found that FINRA was failing to uphold its mission of ensuring transparency.
Goal
Raise awareness about issue adversely affecting the investor community; secure teaching position at major university
Strategy
- Tie the UCLA research to actions taken by the highest levels of government to ensure transparency in the stock market
- Summarize 30-page paper into a 10-line, customized pitch to ensure each financial reporter would see its news value
Results*
Extensive media coverage by many of the world’s largest financial papers and websites, including:
- Bloomberg: Levine on Wall Street: “The Revolving Door for Analysts”
- Business Insider: “Wall Street Has A Disturbing Revolving Door Problem”
- Financial Times: “Sentences to Surprise Nobody: Revolving Door of Sell-Side Analysts Edition”
- International Business Times:“Regulators Fail to Police Conflicts of Interest Among Wall Street Analysts”
- com: “New Study Suggests Finra Is Failing to Prevent Conflicts of Interest
- L’Echo: Des Analysts Financiers Plutôt Accommodants (Financial Analysts Rather Accommodating)
*Dr. Lourie is now assistant professor of accounting at Paul Merage School of Business, University of California Irvine.