The Molinero Capital Management team is joining Briarwood Capital, which will become Briarwood Molinero International. This is of tremendous benefit both for you and for us. Fred Schutzman (CEO of Briarwood) and Rafael Molinero (CEO of Molinero) have known each other for over 10 years and have discussed pursuing a joint venture for the last three years. Both Briarwood Capital and Molinero Capital have strong research and trading capabilities as well as impressive technology, with automated front to back office operations. The merging of these two teams will bring many benefits to our clients and to our firm:
Improved R&D capabilities, both in terms of a new research platform and the ability for me and Rafael to collaborate on research.
Advanced automated electronic trading using smart execution algorithms. This will reduce commission and slippage costs, resulting in improved performance for clients.
Enhanced automated back and middle office operations. All back office operations will be automated to a greater degree and we will create dedicated secured websites for our clients to follow their performance.
Two world-class portfolio managers on our staff.
Let us stress that these are pure enhancements. Nothing is being taken away, only added. The current Briarwood Diversified Trading Program and the current Molinero Global Markets Program will remain as they are. We will also offer a combination of these two programs. Thanks to the very low correlation between these programs (approximately 17%), the new combined program exhibits very strong statistics (an improvement of 30% in Sharpe). Briarwood Molinero International (BMI) will, as a result, be able to offer a broader set of programs to our clients and improve our infrastructure as a firm, which are great positive points for our clients.
We are confident that the future of Briarwood Molinero International looks bright. Thank you again for your support. We will be happy to further discuss these improvements with you, as well as give you more information on the new programs offered. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to us (at InvestorRelations@briarwoodmolinero.com or any Briarwood or Molinero email address, which will still be functional).
Fred G Schutzman, CMT & Rafael Molinero