A New Standard of
Portfolio Management

Through our affiliation with Raymond James, we have access to dedicated professionals who perform due diligence on available asset classes, portfolio allocations, the managers in our database, as well as the available indexes and funds by which we could implement your allocation. 

• Investment Consulting Group
• AMS Manager Research and Due Diligence
• Alternatives Research
• Performance Reporting Group

“What is the most efficient way to capture returns?”

We address one of the key questions investors face with a practical and academic rules-based approach.

Passive

Unless there is strong quantitative evidence of skill, supported by a positive qualitative evaluation of the environment within which that skill can be exercised, we believe investors are generally better served by indexing. Therefore, we consider passive management an option for the most efficient asset classes (e.g. large cap equity) and typically recommend active management when it can be established that security selection can add the most value.

Active

The returns we expect to achieve from stock selection, or active management, are achieved by employing outside managers that have demonstrated special skills and a distinguished process that cannot be reflected in an index. We have an open platform and access to a wide range of experienced managers and proprietary methods of analyzing them.

Blending

Our process seeks the most effective methods of capturing the available return in each opportunity set and, we believe in many cases that can best be achieved through passive and active blending.

There is no assurance any investment strategy will be successful. Investing involves risk including the possible loss of capital.

We do not use or rely on any predetermined allocation or pre-constructed portfolios. You will always benefit from a tailored portfolio that reflects our philosophy using your risk profile, return expectations, spending requirements, liquidity needs and suitability standards.

Our proprietary optimization process was designed to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of your portfolio, seeking to deliver consistent excess risk adjusted returns through a repeatable process that emphasizes our training in quantitative analysis and pattern recognition. Our innovative indexing allows for efficient return capture and when combined with quality class managers we strive to deliver better investment outcomes for our clients.

There is no assurance any investment strategy will be successful. Investing involves risk including the possible loss of capital.

Our Reliability Ratio

Many manager research processes begin with trailing returns and stop there. Our process takes it further:

“How can we know if a manager is going to beat the benchmark?”

We believe our reliability ratio is the best indication of the dependability of the manager’s ability to outperform the benchmark

• Studies of performance persistency generally show that top quartile managers in one period are not likely to be top managers in the next period, leading most to err on favoring past performance.

• We address this by separating the market’s effects from the manager’s excess returns (alpha) and exposing the manager’s variation of skill in various market conditions.

• A manager’s performance is first adjusted for the amount of risk they assumed to achieve that performance. Then, we remove the market (benchmark return or beta) from those statistics, leaving the residual, which is the portion of the return that is most attributable to the manager’s process.

residual alpha / residual risk = reliability ratio

There is no assurance any investment strategy will be successful. Investing involves risk including the possible loss of capital.

How can we know if the fees we are paying to the manager are a good value?

Once we can really understand the value that a manager’s process delivers, we must evaluate it the context of costs and compare that measurement to others.

Our efficiency ratio is an innovative formula that is designed to provide investors with a clear measurement of how effective their fees are at adding value to return.

• Our proprietary work is designed to provide an institutional investor with a clear understanding how their fees are working to achieve return relative to competitive managers or an index strategy. 

reliability ratio / fees = efficiency ratio

Our investment philosophy takes shape with your allocation, but comes to life with tactical management, as we believe these are the cornerstones of your long-term success.

We believe your portfolio should be positioned for an appropriate increased level of risk when the economy and earnings are expanding and then become more conservative when earnings are contracting.

We establish acceptable tactical risk/return relationship ranges around your strategic allocation, allowing us to move up and down the risk curve, within your IPS guidelines, depending on where we are in the business cycle.

There is no assurance any investment strategy will be successful. Investing involves risk including the possible loss of capital. Asset allocation does not guarantee a profit nor protect against loss. Alternative investment strategies involve greater risks and are not appropriate for all investors. International investing involves additional risks such as currency fluctuations, differing financial accounting standards, and possible political and economic instability. These risks are greater in emerging markets.