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Broker-Dealers Need to Rethink Their Strategies In Order To Attract and Retain Top Advisors

To remain competitive in today’s financial advice industry, broker-dealers must recalibrate their relationships with their advisors, according to a whitepaper released by Pershing. The report, “Why Teams Are the Client of the Future for Broker-Dealers”, points out that changes in the advisor-client of the modern broker-dealer present different challenges and opportunities that broker-dealers must navigate. These changes provide broker-dealers with an opportunity to rethink their overall strategies to attract and retain top clients.

According to the report, the top client of today’s successful broker-dealer is not a “rep” or even an “advisor” but an ensemble, which is a firm or a team of multiple professionals that service and manage client relationships. Ensemble teams are already controlling a significant percentage of broker-dealer revenue, growing faster than the average practice, servicing a higher-net-worth client base and offering better career growth opportunities. Most importantly, ensembles are net acquirers. They are acting as a successor for many of the smaller solo practices and are likely to emerge as the ultimate consolidators of the industry.

“Broker-dealers have formed traditional affiliation models around individuals, which don’t necessarily work as well for ensemble firms,” said Jim Crowley, chief relationship officer and managing director at Pershing. “However, broker-dealers that recognize and understand that their top client is a team rather than an individual will not only strengthen existing relationships with these clients, but will also position themselves for organic growth and strategic acquisitions.”

While ensembles are valuable to broker-dealers, they are also at risk of being lost as clients. Many larger teams are departing broker-dealer firms to become independent. These advisors, known as breakaway advisors, are moving to a registered investment advisor (RIA) or hybrid business model. Industry changes continue to increase the possibility that successful teams will part ways with broker-dealers.

Despite the challenges, broker-dealers can successfully recruit, retain, and work with ensembles by better understanding how they work and by restructuring affiliation models. Pershing’s report highlights actionable ways for broker-dealers to accomplish this, including:

Restructure relationship management: Broker-dealers should maintain a relationship with multiple individuals within the ensemble team, including the CEO/managing partner/leader, COO/operations leader, advisors and next generation of successors.
Focus on holistic financial advice: Since more than 70 percent of a large advisory firm’s revenue comes from advisory fees, broker-dealers should seek to reframe the relationship with the firm as one of offering a spectrum of financial advice and serving in a more custodial capacity to demonstrate the greatest value to the advisory team. This includes understanding the investment philosophy of the ensemble team, knowing the tools advisors need to run their business efficiently, integrating technologies and support, offering holistic planning, and building confidence and trust through open communication.
Understand the ensemble team’s vision and business strategy: To be a good business partner, broker-dealers need to ask advisors about where they envision the future of the ensemble team in five to 10 years. Ideally, the vision should be one where there is collaboration with the broker-dealer at some level. The more the two firms work on the strategy together, the longer and stronger the relationship will be.
Think in terms of outsourcing: One of the most productive avenues for strategic partnership is outsourcing. Activities that advisors can outsource to their broker-dealer include: compliance, technology, due diligence, back-office operations and practice management.
Give ensemble teams examples of success and thought leadership that they can study and replicate: One of the primary reasons advisory firms leave broker-dealers and become RIAs is that they perceive it to be the path followed by large and successful businesses. To be successful, broker-dealers need to create examples of the collective intellectual capital that can be leveraged to demonstrate expertise and show value to investors.
Create and foster a culture: If the broker-dealer and advisory firm share the same values and goals, the relationship will be strong, durable and successful. To continue to foster that culture, broker-dealers need to regularly come together with advisors in a constructive dialogue about their business strategies and expectations of each other.

To obtain a copy of Pershing’s whitepaper Why Teams Are the Client of the Future for Broker-Dealers, please use this link

South America Shows the Highest Growth Rate in Foreign Investments in Pension Funds with a 20% CAGR from 2008 to 2014

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Pension funds around the world are increasingly looking beyond their borders to address their investment needs, according to the Association of the Luxembourg Fund Industry (ALFI) which recently released its global pension fund report, “Beyond their borders: evolution of foreign investment by pension funds,” produced by PwC Luxembourg.

The report – which looks at the growth of pension funds globally, the asset allocation of pension funds on a regional basis and the foreign investment of pension funds – found that South America’s pension funds showed the highest growth rate globally, with assets soaring from US$ 184 billion in 2008 to US$ 528 billion in 2014, a 19.2% compound annual growth rate.

In terms of investing overseas, foreign investment for the pension funds of the majority of OECD countries (excluding the US) accounted for about 25% on average of their total pension investments in 2008, but jumped to almost 31% in 2014.

Denise Voss, chairman of ALFI, comments: “As the baby boomer generation approaches retirement and life expectancy continues to improve, public sector pension liabilities will grow. At the same time the need for greater personal savings for retirement income is growing. This study provides more clarity on the global investments of pension funds, demonstrating the opportunities offered by global investing and how some markets are approaching this, but also highlighting how pension fund regulations differ from one country to the other. In particular it highlights the regulatory constraints on some pension funds in the amount they can allocate to investment funds or in foreign investments and suggests the impact this could have on their growth.”

Dariush Yazdani, partner of PwC Luxembourg Market Research Centre, adds: “The new millennium has changed the playing field for pension funds. There are significantly more people retiring today than there were even a decade ago and this is putting pressure on pension funds’ investment strategies. But even in the midst of new challenges, pension fund managers are facing a future brimming with opportunities. The unique ability of pension funds to focus on long-term investments allows them to absorb short-term volatility while bearing market and liquidity risk through diversification – one of the most effective means of achieving diversification is through foreign exposure.”

Growth of pension funds globally

On a regional basis, North America’s pension funds represented the largest assets at a global level, having reached US$ 27.21 trillion in 2014, up from US$ 15.8 trillion in 2008.

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Asset allocation of pension funds on a regional basis

Taken globally pension funds allocated 44% of their total portfolio to equities, 28% to bonds, 26% to alternatives and 2% to money market products in 2014. Allocation varies considerably from region to region, with North America allocating 48% of total assets to equities, Asia Pacific 40%, Europe 37%, and South America 34%.

The US, Canada, Japan and the Netherlands are the countries that pursued the largest equity investments in 2014, allocating US$ 12 trillion, US$ 986 billion, US$ 662 billion and US$ 582 billion respectively to this asset class.

Japanese pension fundsexperienced the largest increase in the share of equities within their total portfolio, which increased by 21% from 2008 to 2014. In contrast, South Korea’s pension funds showed the largest decline in their equity share, decreasing by 22% from 2008 to 2014.

The alternative asset class has shown a strong increase from 2008 to 2014 with the total amount allocated to alternatives jumping from US$ 4.4 trillion in 2008 to US$ 9.7 trillion in 2014, a 117% increase.

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International investments by pension funds

Foreign investment by the pension funds of the majority of OECD countries(excluding the US) accounted for about 31% of their total pension investments on average, however with regional differences described below.

In North America (excluding the US), pension funds’ overseas investments stood at 16% of the region’s total portfolio in 2008, reaching 21% in 2014.

In Europe, the average percentage of pension fund portfolios allocated to foreign markets increased from 32% in 2008 to 34% in 2014, with the Netherlands, Finland and Portugal investing the highest percentage of their pension fund portfolios overseas in the last six years – in the Netherlands foreign investment reached 76% of the country’s total portfolio in 2014.

Asia Pacific’s pension fundsinvested, on average, 19% of the region’s total portfolio in foreign markets in 2008, and expanded that to 31% in 2014. Hong Kong and Japan are the most aggressive investors in foreign investments within Asia, with Japan’s pension fund allocation to foreign markets rising from 16% in 2008 to 32% in 2014.

In South America, this is the case for Chile and Peru, with Chile allocating 44% of total assets to foreign markets in 2014 and Peru investing 41% for the same period. Brazil, in contrast, invested less than 1% in foreign markets in 2014 due to stringent regulatory barriers which are beginning to soften.

When investing abroad, pension funds favor equity investments but adopt different strategies:

Some pension funds develop asset management teams based abroad. For example in 2011 Norges Bank Investment Management, which manages the Government Pension Fund Global for Norway, established a subsidiary in Luxembourg to oversee direct and indirect real estate investments in Continental Europe. The South Korean National Pension Service opened an office in London in 2012, followed by another in Singapore three years later.

Another strategy includes acquisitions or partnerships with asset managers that have expertise in foreign markets. In 2012 Fidante Partners, which manages the Australian government’s pension funds bought a significant stake in MIR Investment Management, a specialist in Asia-Pacific equities.

Investing in foreign funds is another efficient way to invest abroad. Nearly all mature pension markets tend to use investment funds when investing a large percentage of their assets abroad as they are one of the most effective and convenient vehicles for gaining exposure to international assets, giving liquidity and exposure to a wide variety of global assets that are not always available in a domestic market. For less developed pension markets, a higher usage of investment funds is expected over the coming years. Developing countries are likely to follow the move of the Chilean pension funds, which have been achieving higher diversification through the use of UCITS funds.

Ms Voss concludes: “A key finding of this report is the importance of investment funds in the diversification of the portfolios of pension funds around the world. Investment funds, and UCITS investment funds in particular, provide pension funds with a substantial degree of liquidity, diversification and a very high level of investor protection.”

Worldwide Investment Funds Decrease in Q2

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The European Fund and Asset Management Association (EFAMA), in its latest international statistical release containing the worldwide investment fund industry results for the second quarter of 2015 concludes that:

Investment fund assets worldwide decreased 1.6 percent to EUR 37.1 trillion at end June 2015, from EUR 37.7 trillion at end March 2015. In U.S. dollar terms, worldwide investment fund assets increased 2.3 percent to stand at USD 41.5 trillion at June 2015, reflecting the depreciation of the US dollar vis-à-vis the euro during the second quarter of 2015.
Worldwide net cash inflows increased in the second quarter to EUR 596 billion, up from EUR 564 billion in the first quarter of 2015, thanks to increased net inflows to balanced/mixed funds.
Long-term funds (all funds excluding mon ey market funds) recorded net infl ows of EUR 616 billion during the second quarter, compared to EUR 573 billion in the first quarter.

Equity funds attracted net inflows of EUR 121 billion, down from EUR 145 billion in the first quarter.
Bond funds posted net inflows of EUR 100 billion, down from EUR 176 billion in the previous quarter.
Balanced/mixed funds registered a large net inflow of EUR 342 billion, up from EUR 213 billion in the previous quarter.

Money market funds registered net outflows of EUR 20 billion during the second quarter of 2015, compared to net outflows of EUR 9 billion in the first quarter of 2015.
At the end of the second quarter, assets of equity funds represented 41 percent and bond funds represented 21 percent of all investment fund assets worldwide. Of the remaining assets, money market funds represented 11 percent and the asset share of balanced/mixed funds was 19 percent.
The market share of the ten largest countries/regions in the world market were the United States (48.3%), Europe (33.2%), Australia (3.8%), Brazil (3.4%), Japan (3.0%), Canada (3.1%), China (2.7%), Rep. of Korea (0.9%), South Africa (0.4%) and India (0.4%).

Has the Post-Crisis Slump Lured Investors Into Premature Pessimism?

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In its second white paper on the world’s four largest economies, BNY Mellon cautions against “premature pessimism”, arguing that it is too soon to conclude that global growth will disappoint over the rest of this decade.

The Federal Reserve’s hesitation ahead of its closely-watched rate decision illustrates a sobering economic truth: the post-crisis recovery in the developed world has been underwhelming, even as the slowdown in emerging economies has been unsettling. Against this backdrop, it is tempting to accept mediocre growth as the “new normal”.

“But just as the pre-crisis boom tempted people into overconfidence, the post-crisis slump may have lured people into premature pessimism,” notes Simon Cox, BNY Mellon Investment Strategist. “It is too early to say that the underwhelming growth of recent years constitutes a new trend. There is still a lot to play for.”

Cox looks at Japan, America, China and India, the world’s four biggest economies, by purchasing-power parity. Despite recent setbacks, this quartet is benefiting from some promising macroeconomic trends. Deflation is receding in Japan; inflation has eased in India; unemployment is declining in America; and despite China’s stock market turmoil, its property market shows signs of stabilizing. BNY Mellon calls them the G4.

In its first white paper, the company argued that the G4 had substantial “room to recover” as demand revives. The second white paper turns from demand to supply, looking at how the G4’s productive capacity will evolve until 2020. It pays close attention to workforce trends, capital accumulation and productivity gains – the ultimate “sources of growth”.

Labor.- Many people believe that labor shortages will bedevil China and doom Japan. Contrary to popular belief, however, demographics is not destiny. China’s working-age population grew by only 0.5 percent from 2010 to 2014. Yet that did not stop its GDP growing by over 35 percent over the same period. While China’s working-age population is now falling, the decline will be fairly gentle over the next five years and may even pause in 2019-2020, because the cohort retiring at that time is unusually small. Economic recovery has also trumped demographic decline in Japan, where employment has actually increased over the past five years.

Capital accumulation.- In Japan, America and India, investment in new capital has been lackluster in recent years. That has left a backlog of necessary capital expenditures that should yield decent returns as economies revive. In the U.S. private fixed assets are now the oldest they’ve been since the 1950s.[3] Even in China, notorious for its “overcapacity”, there is considerable scope for further capital spending. China’s stock of capital per person is still small, leaving many areas of “undercapacity”.

Technology.- Some technophiles believe we are in the midst of a third industrial revolution which will yield driverless cars, artificial minds and refurbishable bodies. But brisk technological progress has yet to translate into rapid economic gains. To boost output per worker, improved technologies have to be widely deployed by firms. That requires investment. The technological revolution may, therefore, become an economic revolution only when capital formation finally booms. China and India, for their part, still have great scope to enjoy “catch-up growth”, benefiting from technologies that are not new to the world, but are new to them. This progress will not be interrupted by the “middle-income trap”, Cox argues, because such a trap is largely a myth.

BNY Mellon’s G4 scenario envisages growth over the rest of this decade averaging 2 percent in Japan, 3 percent in America, 7 percent in China and 8 percent in India. By questioning the glum consensus, the firm aims to create a robust discussion that helps investors think through all potential growth scenarios.

Lombard Odier IM Hires New Global Macro Team

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Lombard Odier Investment Managers (LOIM) has added to its alternative investment capabilities by hiring a dedicated Global Macro team. The team forms part of LOIM’s Absolute Return investment pillar. The Global Macro team combines considerable experience and is backed by an innovative research platform.  

Vilas Gadkari,  Co-founder of the Rubicon Fund in 1999, Vilas has over 25 years’ of experience in asset management. He held senior portfolio management positions at Brevan Howard Asset Management and Salomon Brothers Asset Management.

Giuseppe Sette, who founded Endowment Advisors in 2012 and was a portfolio manager at Brevan Howard and Davidson Kempner. He began his investment career in 2003 advising on private equity and has 15 years of investment experience.  

Jan Szilagyi, who, prior to joining, was a global macro portfolio manager at Fortress Investment Group and Duquesne Capital. He has over 15 years of experience in global macro strategies.  

On 1 October 2015, the firm launched a UCITS compliant Global Macro strategy with $150 million in Luxembourg. The strategy aims to benefit from macroeconomic themes across all asset classes and regions. The team’s robust portfolio construction is supported by an innovative proprietary research platform as the team seek to implement a transparent and repeatable process.  The fund will be registered for sale across Europe over the next few weeks and will add to Lombard Odier IM’s Alternative UCITS range which includes their US focused equity long / short strategy, LO Funds–Fundamental Equity Long / Short and their systematic offering LO Funds–Alternative Risk Premia.  

Jean-Pascal Porcherot, Head of 1798 Hedge Fund Strategies said:

“We are very excited that the team have joined Lombard Odier IM and with the new fund launch. The calibre of the team offers investors a fresh look at the challenges investors face in the global macro environment. It was clear from the outset that we shared a similar DNA seeking robust returns and managing the downside risk. We believe the team’s strong research platform and focus on portfolio construction stands out in the market and can provide investors with insight into another level of global macro investing”.

Columbia Threadneedle Investments in Strategic Tie Up with Rio Bravo Investimentos in Brazil

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Columbia Threadneedle Investments has entered into an exclusive partnership with Rio Bravo Investimentos, the Brazilian independent money-management firm founded by former central bank head Gustavo Franco, to launch a Brazilian-domiciled fund available to Brazilian pension fund clients.

The fund, wholly managed by Rio Bravo and designed as a feeder, is fully invested in Columbia Threadneedle’s European Select strategy, a successful high alpha European equities portfolio. Due to current regulatory restrictions that prevent Brazilian corporate pension funds from holding more than 25% of total AUM of a fund, the Rio Bravo fund is launching with seed capital of BRL 34 million (approx. USD 8.5 million).

Joseph Sweigart, Senior Institutional Sales Director, Latin America Institutional Distribution at Columbia Threadneedle Investments said: “We are very pleased to partner with Rio Bravo Investimentos, a highly regarded, independent asset manager with long-standing institutional client relationships. We believe that Brazilian pension fund clients will be interested in funds that can generate both high alpha and geographic diversification. Columbia Threadneedle’s European equities team has the proven track record and quality focus to deliver long-term outperformance. Despite the low growth in European economies, the continent counts some of the world’s leading stocks, making it the perfect hunting ground for investors.”

Sweigart will be in Brazil to present at the 36th ABRAPP – Brazilian National Pension Fund – Congress on 8th October, talking about the benefits of global diversification for investors.

If You Want a Career in Asset Management You Should Choose One of These Schools

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For students considering careers in asset management, college and university officials seeking to market their institutions, asset management firms looking for new recruits or anyone with an interest in the top schools feeding talent into the asset management industry, the 2015 eVestment Education Report is a must-read.

Institutional asset managers around the globe provide a variety of data, including the educational backgrounds and industry tenure of firms’ key professionals. The new report offers a look at the top United States schools supplying talent to the asset management industry overall, with additional rankings of key U.S. markets, firm roles, specific investment segments, year of graduation and more. The report even looks at how famous rival colleges like Harvard vs. Yale and Boston College vs. Boston University stack up against each other in placing top talent at asset management firms.

The report also notes interesting facts about employment trends at asset management firms, including that 13.9% of key professionals at asset management firms have not worked in the industry long enough to see a Fed rate hike.

The full report ranks 75 national universities and 15 liberal arts colleges in the United States. Overall, the top 20 U.S. schools, ranked by total number of alumni working as key professionals at asset management firms, are:

University of Pennsylvania
Harvard University
Columbia University
University of Chicago
New York University
Stanford University
Northwestern University
Cornell University
University of California – Los Angeles
Boston College
University of California – Berkeley
University of Virginia
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
University of Michigan – Ann Arbor
Yale University
Boston University
Duke University
Dartmouth College
Princeton University
University of Southern California

Some other interesting points from the report include:

The average asset management professional has 19.3 years of relevant work experience;
About 40% of key professionals in the asset management industry hold a bachelor’s degree as their highest educational degree;
About 39% of key professionals in the industry hold an MBA and about 22% have a PhD or other advanced degree.

To download a full version of the report, please use this link

Flexibility, Risk and Diversification: the Keys to Optimize Income

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CC-BY-SA-2.0, FlickrFoto: Rob Brewer. ¿Final de ciclo crediticio en Estados Unidos?

On looking back at the asset management industry, the past few years have seen significant changes in the investment landscape. One that is affecting most investors is the levels of yield of their investments. In a world where, in many cases, interest rates are below inflation, finding sustainable sources of income is proving ever more challenging. Fixed income, the traditional source of income, has been hit particularly hard by easy monetary policies. Currently, less than 20% of the outstanding debt on the market exceeds a yield of 4%; an unthinkable scenario only a few years ago.

In such an environment, investors should look to have a more holistic approach to income generation, diversifying the sources of yield and reaching across non-traditional asset classes to achieve their income goals. For example, within the fixed income asset class, investors can diversify their holdings to incorporate sectors such as high yield corporate bonds and emerging market debt that still offer attractive yields

For those who have access to physical assets, some alternative investments carry attractive income opportunities, such as real estate or infrastructure funds due to the low correlation to the market that they offer.

However, for a successful diversified income portfolio, yield levels should not be the sole factor in defining one’s allocation. Income growth is crucial to ensure targets are reached and income growth outpaces inflation. Dividend paying companies can often play this role.

“By investing in stable companies with records of paying and growing dividends, there is a higher probability that your income portfolio can keep pace with the rising cost of living […]. In this asset class, we prefer Europe over any other developed market” highlights BlackRock.

With interest rates near record lows, investors have been looking for opportunities in these new areas. But navigating through the current environment has become more challenging. In order to make informed decisions about income-oriented strategies, it proves import to understand the key characteristics and risks of these different asset classes.

Many investors reaching for higher yields have increased the risk profile of their portfolios and are often unaware that they are doing so. This is where diversification can play a crucial role in ensuring that a portfolio is not over-exposed to a particular type of risk. It is also important to be aware of new risks that need to be considered such as issuer risk for credit exposures, foreign exchange, liquidity risk and equity volatility.

According to BlackRock “Striking a balance between what investment outcome needs to be achieved and the acceptable risk level to achieve it, is arguably the single most important principle in building an income portfolio.”

This material is for educational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice nor an offer or solicitation to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any shares of any Fund (nor shall any such shares be offered or sold to any person) in any jurisdiction in which an offer, solicitation, purchase or sale would be unlawful under the securities law of that jurisdiction. If any funds are mentioned or inferred to in this material, it is possible that some or all of the funds have not been registered with the securities regulator in any Latin American country and thus might not be publicly offered within any such country. The securities regulators of such countries have not confirmed the accuracy of any information contained herein.

GRI Colombia, Chile, Peru: Connecting Senior Real Estate Executives Globally

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On the 11th and November 12th, the first edition of GRI Colombia – Chile – Peru will gather at the Bogotá Plaza Summit Hotel, Colombian, Chilean and Peruvian leaders of the real estate sector.

The event connects leading investors, developers and lenders to exchange ideas and deepen their business relationships during the closed-door discussions and networking sessions. It offers an effective way to identify potential partners who share common interests and enjoy doing business in a relaxed and intimate atmosphere.

At the GRI forums there’s no stage, no presentations or panels. Instead there are closed-door discussions between leaders where everyone participates.

This forum will go over the relevant issues in the market such as: Residential, joint ventures, investment vehicles, offices, hotels, next markets or Andean region big picture.

Keynote speakers include Álvaro Uribe Vélez, Former President, Colombia who will speak about “Latin America in the emerging economies century”; Sam Zell, Chairman, Equity International and Equity Investment Group to share his view on “The impact of the monetary policy on developed and emerging markets-What difference might the Pacific Alliance, MILA and TPP make?”

Other participants include: Paladin Realty Partners, USA; Terranum Corporate Properties, Colombia; TC Latin America Partners, USA; Grupo Exito, Colombia; Grupo Pegasus, Argentina; Inquietudes Inmobiliarias, Colombia; Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Colombia; Grupo Lar, Colombia; Parque Arauco, Colombia; The Blackstone Group, USA; Union Investment Real Estate, Germany; Socovesa, Chile; PSP Investments, Canada; Jamestown Latin America, Colombia; Ospinas & Cia, Colombia; Lennar International, USA; Gávea Investimentos, Brazil; Equity International, USA; and Jaguar Capital, Colombia.

Early bird offer untill October 9th.

For more information about the program and participants please download the brochure or visit our website

Standard Life Investments Creates New Tool to Manage Global Real Estate Risk

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Standard Life Investments has designed a new tool to help institutional investors manage risk and inform their decisions when investing in global real estate.

The Global Real Estate Implementation Risk tool (GREIR) can help investors find the right markets for their level of risk appetite and understand the expected returns in their global real estate portfolios. It provides an easy method for investors to assess and compare the individual risk ratings of 60 different countries.

GREIR produces a risk score for each country that can be converted into a risk adjustment factor, to achieve a more accurate comparison of the ‘at risk’ portion of expected returns from a global real estate portfolio.

The GREIR tool aggregates three categories of global surveys, representing more than 300 data points, to evaluate and assess economic, political and real estate specific risks.

Indices from all three categories are weighted to produce a risk score of between 1 and 10 for each of the 60 countries included in the rankings. The country with the lowest score is the least risky for real estate investment. The seven components of the score are market size, ease of doing business, competitiveness, innovation, public sector corruption, creditdefault swap spreads, and transparency. The rankings will be updated on a quarterly basis.

Anne Breen, Standard Life Investments, Head of Real Estate Research and Strategy, said: “The level of risk in real estate investment varies enormously from country to country, and the historic measures used for these can mean investors miss changes in risk.

“Cross border investment requires a three dimensional assessment of how the mix of risks affects expected returns. The aim of the GREIR tool is to address the need for a robust framework on which to base decisions about global and regional real estate investment strategies. It provides a more coherent measurement of the domestic risks involved, and helps investors find the right markets for their level of risk appetite.”

Over time the GREIR tool will be expanded to include leading cities within each of the countries listed.