Sep 16, 2013

Annuity expert sells his QWeMA Group consulting business to retirement income data provider Cannex, joins board Moshe Milevsky, York University finance professor and foremost international authority on annuities, is selling his QWeMA Group consulting firm to retirement income data provider Cannex, in a deal that preserves QWeMA group’s unique intellectual property: Dr. Milevsky himself, who will join the Cannex board and oversee its quantitative research. “Cannex has been working closely with Moshe Milevsky for more than 17 years and was QWeMA’s first client,” said Lowell Aronoff , CEO of Cannex, in a news release announcing the deal Monday morning. “The two companies are a perfect fit because we share similar philosophies about the need for education and awareness about how all types of annuities fit into retirement plans.” Complete your profile to continue reading and get FREE access to ThinkAdvisor.com, part of your ALM digital membership. Your access to unlimited ThinkAdvisor.com content isn’t changing. Once you are an ALM digital member, you’ll receive: Critical ThinkAdvisor information including continuing education articles and quizzes, Fact Sheets, Investing Guides, educational webcasts and videos, resources from industry leaders, and informative eNewsletters. Exclusive discounts on ALM and ThinkAdvisor events. Access to other award-winning ALM publications including LifeHealthPro.com, GlobeSt.com and Law.com. Already have an account? Sign In They are doing similar things for variable and deferred annuities. In my mind, they are the Bloomberg Terminal of annuities. QWeMA, on the other hand, is about the analytics of decisions around retirement income in general and annuities in particular. We have extremely powerful and efficient tools, but need a better way of distributing and implementing those tools. This is where Cannex comes in. The problem with (1) is that although they had deep pockets, we would risk alienating some of our clients who use our allocation software tools and compete directly with other product manufacturers. It would have been mighty hard to call up insurance company A and tell them that we just sold ourselves to insurance company B. There goes that client! Then, as far as partnering up with (2) a financial planning firm, our main problem was "lifecycle philosophy. " Many of the widely used tools and packages take a very deterministic approach to the future. They are expected-cash-flow-focused and do a poor (or horrible) job of implementing uncertainty into their planning. At QWeMA we live and breathe stochastic processes and random variables. So I would listen or watch some of the presentations explaining their financial planning tools, and couldn't help but wonder (or scream) "Where is the risk? Life has more than one moment!” I have developed a huge appreciation for human resource management. We also have some really cool new analytic tools that Cannex will be launching from within the QWeMA unit, which will be run by Faisal Habib going forward. Eventually though, I will move back from business management and let the "professional suits" take over the day-to-day life of support, servicing, contract negotiations, etc. Yes, I will be joining the Cannex board, but I will have more of a research and oversight responsibility.