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UBS Investment Bank · Equities Strategist, Prime Brokerage · 2015 – 2017
Launching a tradable product line that grew bespoke client flow 250% YoY
Designed and launched tradable factor baskets for institutional clients — a new, standardized way to package a strategy that had previously only existed as one-off bespoke trades.
$100m+ trading notional in the first 6 months, 250% YoY growth in bespoke client flows
Product StrategyFinancial ProductsGrowth
The problem
Institutional clients wanting exposure to specific factor strategies (value, momentum, quality, and similar) had to request bespoke, one-off trades each time — slow to structure, inconsistent in pricing, and hard for the desk to scale past a handful of relationships. There was demand for something standardized enough to trade repeatedly, without losing the customization clients actually wanted.
The approach
- Designed a tradable factor basket product that packaged the same underlying strategies into a standard, repeatable structure — cutting the time from client request to executable trade.
- Worked directly with the trading desk to price and structure the baskets so they could be quoted and traded like a standard product, not renegotiated from scratch each time.
- Used the standardized product as a lead-in for bespoke conversations — clients could start with a basket and customize from there, rather than starting a bespoke negotiation cold.
The outcome
- $100m+ in trading notional in the first six months of launch.
- 250% year-over-year increase in bespoke client flows, driven by the basket product acting as an entry point rather than replacing bespoke business.
- Gave the desk a scalable product to lead with, instead of every client relationship starting from a fully custom structure.