Every month we receive hundreds of press releases, most of which are issued by public relations firms representing their investment manager clients. The last paragraph in each of those press releases is almost always reserved for a few sentences describing the nature of the firm for whom the press release is being released, and in nine out of 10 cases — perhaps more — the first sentence says something such as, “XYZ Corp. is a leading investment management firm …”

The obvious trouble with that is that every firm can’t be a leading firm. By definition, to be a leading firm, there would have to be some following firms — but who in the world would want to claim to be one of those? When you claim to be something everyone else claims to be, it not only doesn’t differentiate your firm, it also doesn’t carry much credibility.

That’s another problem with these kinds of statements. In almost all cases, they’re unsubstantiated claims. There is a huge differe