Markus Barth, CFA
CEO of Anatase Ltd.

 

Markus Barth, CFA is a seasoned investment professional and an index pioneer who has designed, developed and launched highly successful proprietary indices throughout his long career in the financial services industry.

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Markus has extensive expertise in indices, structured products and investment solutions as well as coordinating the wrapping of indices into investment products sold globally.

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Beginning in the 1990's, Markus entered the Sell-Side taking on the role of Global Head of International Quantitative Strategy at Merrill Lynch.  Quant Research outside of the USA was an unknown quantity at the time and Markus applied many of the techniques used in the US market to European and Asian markets.  He earned top marks as a Quant in the Institutional Investor All-Europe Research Team for 7 consecutive years.  It was during his time at Merrill that Markus developed his passion for building investment strategies which could be launched as indices.

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Moving from Research to Structured Products, Markus began his many years at Deutsche Bank and DWS managing numerous Systematic Investment Strategies across the bank. He was the first to successfully monetize institutional research via the launch of the DB CROCI Indices. The UCITS Funds linked to these indices generated a 15-year top quartile track record, assets exceeding €15 billion and peak revenues of €100M per annum.

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While at DB, Markus was responsible for the design of numerous ground-breaking investment strategies including:
 

• The first Sharia' compliant investable equity indices which enabled Islamic investors to gain exposure across broad equity markets.

• A new approach to factor investing - pairing his own growth and value style indices against equity benchmarks in order to extract the outperformance of style while significantly reducing the risk and hedging costs of the short portfolio.

• Designing the first Low Carbon Climate Indices that utilised proprietary valuation metrics to ensure both a low Carbon Footprint and attractive valuations.

• Bringing CROCI Indices into the US Fixed Index Annuity market and raising nearly $1 billion during the first 18 months.

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In addition to his index expertise, Markus has extensive experience designing marketing materials that present a compelling message.  His University studies in Marketing provided a unique perspective on the branding and promotion of investable indices.  An avid presenter, Markus is equally comfortable in front of large audiences as well as one-to-one client meetings.

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Finally, as a key part of his migration from Deutsche Bank to DWS, Markus helped to migrate the entire CROCI Research and Investment Products business from the Bank over to DWS).  This involve detailed analysis of both the CROCI Research and CROCI UCITS Fund platforms in order to assess valuations, cashflow, profitability and resource allocation.  It also involved converting an Institutional Research Department into an Asset Management entity which carried with it substantial changes in the way that the team was monitored and performed their daily activities.

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In June, 2019, Markus founded Anatase Ltd., a UK independent consulting company which enables him to share his expertise with clients around the world.
In 2020, Markus has designed and launched the first-ever Water Security Index family which are fundamentally weighted by a proprietary measurement of Water Risk (designed by Markus) and live since January, 2021.  In mid 2021, Markus designed and developed the world's first Global Photonics Thematic Index which captures exposure to the largest companies whose activities are focused on photonics manufacturing activities.  Investment products linked to both of these ground-breaking indices are in the development and launch process.

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