In general, the research department seeks to comply with the following alongside the broader business:

• Employ several professionally accredited professionals to undertake thorough analysis.
• Enshrine analyst independence and for conflicts to be identified, controlled and managed.
• Deliver quality research from both a quantitative and qualitative standpoint.
• Expects research analysts to act ethically and honestly with dealings across corporates (coverage), advisors (firm) and clients.
• Research to be available only to licensees target persons, being wholesale and sophisticated only (not retail).
• Provide training and access to CPD services to research staff.
• Deliver separation of corporate advisory and ECM mandates to the provision of research or corporate services.
• Involve material peer review and reporting to the Head of Research and Executives of the firm.
• Utilise publicly available information and apply adequate judgement with regards to material non-public information.
• Prohibit corporate advisory staff or other employees from influencing or seeking to influence research outcomes, such as valuation and recommendation.
• Provide disclaimers and adequate disclosure of fees and potential conflicts including personal and firm positions in stocks, alongside corporate advice.
• During pre-solicitation phases of capital raising or IPO’s to not express views on valuation of pricing.
• Have a range of physical and electronic information barriers for research staff. Including separate folders and emails of corporate and research staff.
• When research is being provided post a corporate advisory or transaction has been undertaken on a security, coverage will not be resumed until 3 business days post issue (on secondary issues) and 10 days post issue on IPO’s.
• Compensation decisions of analysts and research personnel to be determined by a range of factors, but will not be specifically linked to a transaction. Compensation and variable compensation in particular will likely be driven by the overall profitability of Unified Capital Partners as a whole.
• Comply with and interpret the guidelines set out by the Australian Securities and Investments
• Commission (ASIC) in research regulatory guidance notes: RG79, RG181 and RG264.

In general research analysts are required to report any potential conflicts and to deliver quality coverage to the best of their abilities.