Brian W. Arcese

1838's portfolio management team practices a bottom-up decision-making process along with quantitative screens. They do not market time, style rotate or sector rotate. Rather, they are fully invested at all times and remain sector neutral to the benchmark S&P 500. For fixed-income, the 1838 team focuses on yield curve analysis. They allocate funds from among U.S. treasuries, corporates and mortgage backed securities using a spread model that reflects 15 years of performance history. They screen each security for its structural soundness and long-term performance potential.

BlackRock Advisors offers investors around the world a variety of investment products that span across asset classes, market-caps, investment styles and geographic regions. Their mandates include cash management, equity, fixed income, alternative, multi-asset and quantitative equity strategies.

Invesco Advisers provides a variety of services across a broad spectrum of investment strategies, sectors and asset classes. The firm utilizes several different methodologies, each predicated on a rigorous, bottom-up, value-oriented security selection process.

MLAM's worldwide approach to equity investing uses a philosophy of identifying relative value among individual stocks and stock markets by focusing primarily on two variables: reinvestment rate and the price-to-book value ratio. There are seven additional screens employed to further refine the process. The factors used to identify value include price-to-cash flow, price-to-earnings ratios, past and future earnings growth and dividend payouts. For asset allocation, a country whose market valuation measurements seem consistently above or below world averages or its own historical averages are over or under-weighted accordingly. The degrees of over or under-weighting are determined by relative economic prospects as measured by the outlook for GNP, inflation and interest rates of each country and their impact on currency movements. By combining a value approach to individual stock selection with asset allocation by country, the firm seeks to achieve consistent performance relative to international equity indexes. MLAM combines top-down and bottom-up analysis and uses proprietary models as part of their research process. Their funds are team-managed.

Provides brokerage services

Van Kampen Asset Management (VK) offers a variety of investment strategies that cover a range of investment styles, from domestic to international, fixed-income to equity and core to alternative investments. The firm's separately managed account strategies include: Core Equity, Growth Equity, International Growth Equity, Value and Value Equity. VK's Core Equity strategy employs a blended investment style. The strategy seeks to achieve consistently superior returns relative to the S&P 500 Index with a similar risk profile. VK uses a multifactor approach that employs a systematic stock selection process along with fundamental stock analysis and a comprehensive risk management approach. The firm's Growth Equity strategy seeks to achieve consistently superior returns relative to the Russell 1000 Growth Index with a similar risk profile. The strategy uses a multifactor approach that employs a systematic stock selection process along with fundamental stock analysis and a comprehensive risk management approach. The VK International Growth Equity strategy invests in a diversified portfolio of the equity securities of issuers located in countries other than the US. VK focuses on identifying the best companies from around the world that demonstrate true market leadership and significant growth characteristics. the firm employs a bottom-up stock selection process to identify market-leading companies with strong management teams, a clear business focus, competitive advantages and strong balance sheets. The firm's Value strategy is an actively managed strategy that offers clients the potential for capital growth and income. VK constructs portfolios of the stocks of well-established companies that are undervalued relative to other companies in their respective industries, historical prices or the overall market. They seek attractive companies that may be temporarily out-of-favor in the marketplace, but that have sound business fundamentals and are trading at prices are lower than the firm thinks they should be. VK's Value strategy is based on a deep-value investment discipline. They evaluate companies in different sectors and industries should according to different valuation measures, as they tend to vary in terms of earnings growth and balance sheet data. VK's process focuses on evaluating individual stocks, considering each company's business model, competitors and revenue streams in relation to other companies within a distinct industry. The firm's Value Equity strategy seeks to achieve consistently superior returns relative to the Russell 1000 Value Index with a similar risk profile. The strategy employs a multifactor approach that is based on a systematic stock selection process along with fundamental stock analysis and comprehensive risk management. Though not limited by sector, VK tends to invest in the stocks of companies in the finance, consumer services, health technology, electronic technology and energy minerals sectors. They invest globally, across all market-caps, with a focus on large-cap stocks. VK maintains a low turnover rate.

Functions as a College/University

Echo Point Investment Management is a global growth equity investment firm that seeks to: (1) construct high-conviction, fully-diversified portfolios of high-quality growth companies and (2) outperform the benchmark by 200 to 300 basis points (annualized) over time. Their fundamental growth equity investment process is a disciplined, repeatable process that seeks to identify high-quality growth companies against a 3 to 5-year investment horizon, while actively monitoring and managing risk. In particular, Echo Point seeks to identify well-managed managed companies that have been successful, as the firm believes these companies generally tend to continue to be successful. The firm's investment approach is also based on the belief that minimizing losses is critical to maximizing returns. Echo Point's investment process is based on a consistent, bottom-up security selection process that is based on rigorous fundamental research. Prior to being included in a portfolio, the following characteristics of each potential investment are evaluated: (1) the company's market position (2) the company's strategy for future growth (3) the company's sustainable competitive advantage (4) the strength of the company's balance sheet and (5) the reasonableness of the company's valuation. In addition to third-party research, Echo Point's portfolio managers and analysts meet with virtually all of their portfolio companies' management teams to qualify company-specific drivers. Echo Point's investment process begins with an initial screening referred to as 'Alphascore.' This screen reduced the universe of stocks of 30,000 to 300. The firm uses fundamental analysis to identify key investment themes. Portfolios are constructed which consist of 60 to 80 high-quality mid-cap and large-cap stocks from every region of the world. With the objective of delivering strong relative performance, Echo Point executes a consistent growth style, along with sector, region and emerging market collars. Their strategy is available as a separate account in local shares or ADRs.

Foord Singapore is an active, long-term manager which aims to preserve capital and manage risk. They seek to produce consistent, inflation-beating returns using a combination of sound asset allocation and selection of undervalued securities. The firm constructs diversified investment portfolios based on rigorous fundamental research, high conviction ideas and an adaptable, value-driven investment policy.