Institutional Investing
Better results. Lower risk.
With institutional investing, our objective is simple: To build portfolios designed to outperform the market with less overall risk. Our investments are selected to both withstand the turbulence of the market and to take advantage of opportunities. We focus on growing our clients' assets over full market cycles through equity and fixed income investment strategies, as well as with our balanced management services.
Equity
We specialize in managing portfolios of U.S. traded stocks for Value Equity (Russell 1000 Value) and Diversified Value (S&P 500) strategies that focus on companies with a market capitalization greater than $2 billion. We build diversified, but relatively concentrated portfolios that are designed to outperform benchmarks while controlling risk.
We believe the most substantial investment returns result when quality companies are acquired at depressed valuations. Using a fundamental, bottom-up, value-focused investment discipline, we identify attractively valued, high-quality companies and estimate their intrinsic value through a thorough review of their financial statements, business strategy, and competitive position.
If the company’s stock is trading at a substantial discount to our estimate of value, it may then be added to the portfolio. Our investment process also focuses on identifying at least one catalyst for each security that will likely unlock shareholder value.
Fixed Income
Our fixed income process is based on a multi-faceted, total return methodology that focuses on four key components of fixed income portfolio construction: duration management, yield curve positioning, sector rotation, and security selection. Our goal is to add value and control risk in each component in order to deliver superior risk-adjusted returns through all phases of the economic and interest rate cycles.
We base our investment decisions on an objective study of relationships compared to current market conditions. Our duration and yield curve positioning are driven by an analysis of the current level of inflation-adjusted yields against their historical levels and the relative steepness of the interest rate curve. This perspective is also enhanced by analyzing the shape and level of the short-term yield curve, which is also a good indicator of future Federal Reserve policy.
Sector allocation decisions are determined by the current yield advantage in the market compared to historical valuations, as well as the perceived risk for the sector. In selecting securities, we seek to find undervalued securities in each market (based on their level of risk and liquidity) with cash flow characteristics that meet the portfolio’s objectives.
Balanced Portfolio Management
For clients who wish to address multiple asset class allocations in one portfolio, we offer balanced account strategies. After establishing guideline ranges with each client, we actively allocate between the primary asset classes of equities, fixed income, and cash.
In making these allocation decisions, we focus on the relative attractiveness of the equity market versus the fixed income market. Those relationships are reviewed on a regular basis and portfolio changes are made when the relative valuations of equities and bonds changes significantly.