Newly created senior leadership position for the firm, Will drive growth and new client solutions across equity fixed income currency and sustainable strategies, CHICAGO December 8 2020, – Mesirow (the “firm” an independent and employee-owned financial services firm announced today that Erik, Barefield rejoined the firm as Senior Managing Director and Head of Traditional Investment Management During his prior tenure at Mesirow Mr Barefield served as Senior Managing Director and Head of the Mesirow Advanced Strategies Global Client Relationship Team He will report directly to Richard S Price Mesirow Chairman and CEO In this newly created position Mr Barefield will oversee the firm’s…, About Mesirow, Mesirow is an independent employee-owned financial services firm founded in 1937 Headquartered in Chicago with offices around the world we serve clients through a personal custom approach to reaching financial goals and acting as a force for social good With capabilities spanning Global Investment Management Capital Markets & Investment Banking and Advisory Services we invest in what matters…

Environmental Social and Governance data as a complementary source in a fundamental strategy, Abstract This article explains how we incorporate ESG data within our systematic FX trading strategies Our approach uses an in-house data acquisition cleansing restructuring and standardisation pipeline Our proprietary algorithm dynamically assesses ESG indicators in order to promote the most compatible and demote the least compatible factors depending on recent FX market data Our 10 years…

ESG government risk and international IPO underpricing, Edward D Baker a Thomas J Boulton b* Marcus V Braga-Alves c Matthew R Morey c a Mesirow Financial International UK Limited Sackville House 40 Piccadilly London W1J 0DR UK b Farmer School of Business Miami University Oxford OH 45056 USA c Lubin School of Business Pace University New York NY 10038 USA Abstract We study the association between environmental social and governance (ESG government…

Over the past decade ‘socially responsible’ investing has become a key objective of pension funds globally Environmental social and governance (ESG risk ratings have enabled investors to incorporate ‘non-tangible’ information about a company such as their environmental and employee welfare policies into their investment decisions, ESG and the currency markets, Traditionally ESG ratings have only been published at a corporate-level However ESG ratings at a country-by- country level are now available In this article we take a preliminary look at whether this data could be useful in predicting the path of a country’s currency First let’s conjecture how a country’s standing in terms of ESG matters could potentially impact the price of its currency 1…, ESG and currency Research so far, As country-level ESG factors are relatively new there is limited research of the use of ESG country factors in the currency markets However in 2019 a paper by Baker Alves and Morey (2020 found evidence supporting the hypothesis that the currencies of countries with high ESG country-ratings performed significantly better than the currencies of countries with low ESG country-ratings Is there a link…, Creating an ESG currency basket, Like Baker et al (2020 we used the MSCI ESG Government ratings but concentrated our efforts on the developed currencies of AUD CAD CHF EUR GBP JPY NZD We created a systematic strategy which on an individual country basis creates a buy signal for that country’s currency if the most recent ESG value has increased the previous year and a sell signal if its most recent ESG value has decreased since…, Multi-Strategy Currency Factor,  , ESG Strategy Currency Basket, Original Weights, Weights adjusted to include allocation to the ESG Basket, Annualised Return 190% 252% 237% Annualised Standard Deviation 559% 285% 277% Return/Risk 034 089 085 Maxdown -852% -415% -318% Best month 701% 368% 374% Worst month -550% -154% -249%   The results of this analysis can be seen in the second column of Figure 1 Over the period in question the ESG currency strategy basket achieved a positive annualized return of 190% The progression of the net asset…

As cryptocurrency continues to evolve as an emerging asset class it is important to determine how this uniquely positioned investment interacts with other financial planning considerations One key focus should be on the transfer of wealth embedded in cryptocurrency through estate planning Here are the key considerations when integrating cryptocurrency into an estate plan, Asset accessibility, In many ways estate planning and decentralized cryptocurrency appear to have conflicting objectives The former focuses on providing heirs with access to one’s assets while one of the tenets of the latter is to ensure that this data remains private and anonymous For example one may have wealth stored in cryptocurrency but this wealth provides little value if there is no way to transfer access…, Beneficiary designations, Unlike many traditional assets due to the nature of cryptocurrencies and digital assets a beneficiary cannot be named on an account Further at present no crypto custodian allows for digital currency to be purchased directly in the name of a revocable trust As an alternative one way to protect cryptocurrency or other digital assets is by listing these assets on a schedule of revocable trust assets…, Risk of asset loss, Further complicating matters anyone who has access to this private key is entitled to its value If it falls into the wrong hands the digital asset could be claimed by an unintended recipient And due to its decentralized nature there is no government agency that provides protection or insurance in this situation, Potential solutions, So can you protect the value of this asset while ensuring that only the planned inheritors gain access to secure data In short as this is a developing technology there is no definitive answer Rather new (albeit imperfect solutions are being generated to address this need One common solution is for the digital asset holder to break their private key into multiple pieces spreading out a password…, Published February 2025, 1 https//moneyusnewscom/money/personal-finance/family-finance/articles/what-holding-cryptocurrency-means-for-your-estate-plan#~text=Protect%20Your%20Crypto%2DAssetssusceptible%20to%20loss%20or%20theft 2 https//wwwjdsupracom/legalnews/estate-planning-for-digital-assets-and-9463278/ 3  https//wwwcamdenlawofficecom/how-to-incorporate-cryptocurrency-into-your-estate-plan/

Ethan Aquino is an Investment Research Analyst in Mesirow Wealth Management He is responsible for due diligence and ongoing monitoring of traditional and alternative investment mangers for implementation into client portfolios  Ethan has two years of investment industry experience Prior to joining Mesirow in 2024 he worked at Northern Trust as an Investment Associate II supporting portfolio…

Eugene Duffy is Managing Director on the Mesirow Capital Formation and Currency Solutions team Prior to joining Mesirow he built an impressive record as a Partner and Director with a quantitative domestic equity firm a national private equity real estate investor and a regional fixed income advisor He also served as a Director for Sunrise Bank Eugene has worked with numerous nonprofit…