Using journalistic-style investment due diligence can add a differentiated component to a multi-dimensional approach to research, according to Raphael Lewis, head of specialist research at BNY Investments Newton, during a session at the Canadian Investment Review’s 2025 Investment Innovation Conference.
“There are many interesting and important quantitative, data-related and intelligence-related tools that an investor can and should use. The idea here is that we really want to help where the fundamental investor’s expertise dies.”
Relying on his investigative journalism background, Lewis and his team interview people with direct expertise to reach what he calls a deeper truth, while stress testing the original investment idea. This method is designed to focus on long-lived questions central to an investment thesis that can’t be answered in any conventional way, he noted.
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More than a decade ago, Lewis founded an investigative team at the Boston Company Asset Management to put his reporter skills to work. The similarities found between an investment thesis and an investigative story — like the countless ones he worked on during his time as a journalist at the Boston Globe — allow this method to thrive in the face of uncertainty around an asset, he said.
The approach is also helpful when a portfolio manager and an analyst disagree on a crucial part of the investment thesis for a particular strategy. “Traditionally, what’s happened is the portfolio manager either says, ‘Well, alright, I guess I should trust you’ and they go by it or they say, ‘You know what? I just can’t get there.’”
Recently, Lewis’ team was tasked with investigating guidance by a mining company after it experienced a mud rush event at its copper and gold mine in Indonesia. As soon as the mud rush occurred, an analyst colleague who covers the company asked Lewis to start talking to people who understood the mine and the company and determine if company guidance was aggressive or conservative.
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By tracking former representatives working at the mine, legal experts in Indonesia and independent consultants, he was able to report a steady track record by the firm and how its leaders have traditionally provided conservative guidance.
Lewis makes sure to look for truthful information that can clear up any doubts about a particular investment by staying away from performance results and focusing instead on in-depth research. His goal is to provide an objective second set of eyes to an investment decision.
“We just tell it like it is, just like we did when we were reporters.”
Read more coverage from the 2025 Investment Innovation Conference.