June 22, 2023
In this episode of the Global Investment Leaders podcast, Rosemont CEO Chas Burkhart is joined by Barbara McKenna, president of Longfellow Investment Management in Boston, MA. Longfellow is a $17+ billion firm* primarily focused on short-term and fixed-income strategies, with an equity-oriented approach. McKenna’s leadership over the past 18 years has brought significant growth to the firm, expanded its core competencies and offerings, broadened employee ownership – all while maintaining an exceptionally-low client turnover rate. In the episode, McKenna details Longfellow’s investment-centric culture, driven by client success and supported by a broad employee ownership structure.
In terms of the macroeconomic landscape, Longfellow emphasizes bottom-line security selection, considers macro events’ influence rather than predicting them and identifies risks associated with them.
“I truly believe that, as an active manager, the greatest success comes when we are a viewed as a partner and a solution provider, and that of course, includes seeking to deliver consistent above average, risk-adjusted, relative or absolute returns, but it really means focusing on listening to the needs of clients, having the ability to customize solutions,” McKenna said.
Specifically, McKenna and Burkhart discuss:
- Longfellow’s focus on short-term and fixed income strategies with an equity owner’s mindset.
- The expansion of Longfellow’s offerings over the years, incorporating core plus strategies and absolute return offerings to meet client needs and capture a broader range of opportunities.
- How the firm prioritizes cultural and philosophical fit when selecting strategies and aims to be a role model for change as a woman-majority-owned firm.
- Key aspects of McKenna’s leadership philosophy, how to attract and retain employees, and the importance of diverse perspectives and collaboration in the workplace.
- How Longfellow maintains its investment-centric culture and emphasizes client success
- Longfellow’s approach to the macroeconomic landscape, including bottom-line security selection and understanding the influence of macro events.
The episode concludes with McKenna’s take on the current economic environment, Fed hikes, rates and market volatility. Overall, the episode offers valuable insights into the factors that have fueled Longfellow’s success and its unwavering dedication to serving clients with integrity and expertise.
All episodes of the Global Investment Leaders podcast are available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
Google Podcasts and more. Receive the episodes as soon as they premiere by subscribing today.
* Approximate AUM of Longfellow Investment Management at the time of recording.
May 24, 2023
In this episode of How They Did It, a sub series of Rosemont’s Global Investment Leaders podcast, host Brad Mook is joined by Lindsay Chamberlain, Managing Director at Axiom Investors. During their conversation, Chamberlain, who has been a part of Axiom for 10 out of the firm’s 25 years, discusses Axiom’s business and investment philosophies, which have enabled the firm to expand its client partnerships and thoughtfully scale its business.
Chamberlain and Mook discuss:
- How the firm’s culture has been key to its success, aligning the interests of its employees with those of its clients.
- Axiom’s commitment to collaboration, which has led to innovative ideas and thinking, while its focus on performance has played a significant role in its success.
- How offering a range of investment vehicles has helped attract different client types and build a diverse base of business.
- Axiom’s rebranding from Axiom International Investors to Axiom Investors, which reflects the build-out of its strategies which all leverage its core, dynamic growth investment philosophy that is grounded in fact-based evidence.
- The importance of maintaining a strong culture to ensure the firm’s success and stability, and how adapting and responding to changes in the industry is key.
Chamberlain also touches on Axiom’s client communication strategy and the importance of maintaining a performance-led culture without compromising on the firm’s values. The episode concludes with Chamberlain sharing key lessons learned from her 10-year tenure at Axiom.
All episodes of the Global Investment Leaders podcast are available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts and more. Receive the episodes as soon as they premiere by subscribing today.
April 20, 2023
On the latest episode of the Global Investment Leaders podcast, Chas Burkhart, Rosemont’s CEO, hosts Stefan Strein, Cleveland Clinic’s first chief investment officer, for a conversation about Cleveland Clinic’s investment strategy and how it supports the organization’s mission of “caring for life, researching for health and educating those who serve.” In his role as chief investment officer, Strein is responsible for the strategic direction and investment management of Cleveland Clinic’s $15 billion in investable financial assets. He also co-chairs Cleveland Clinic’s Retirement Committee, which oversees $11 billion in defined contribution assets invested for the organization’s 70,000 caregivers.
Drawing upon his 30-year investment career, which started in venture investing, Strein shares his insights on:
- Cleveland Clinic’s move in 2015 to build an investment office internally with an initial focus on creating a foundation built on managing risk and measuring performance
- The advantages of the Clinic as an investment office and how it leverages software for data warehouses, visualization tools and artificial intelligence applications used in managing clinical operations around the world to manage the investment portfolios,
- How healthcare investment portfolios are typically more conservative than the average endowment due to the need for stability and predictability in the industry
- The importance of contributing to the credit rating of a healthcare system, as the health system utilizes long term debt to fund the construction of its destination medical centers
- How the purposeful integration of investment partners and the investment team into the Clinic’s mission through behind-the-scenes hospital tours, curated webinars on healthcare topics and connectivity to clinical and research thought leaders highlights the importance of collaboration and shared values in achieving success
- How Cleveland Clinic aims to be early pioneers in emerging investment strategies and newly launched firms, but not necessarily the first dollar, to mitigate risk
The podcast concludes by discussing key success metrics for the investment side of Cleveland Clinic. Strein states he measures the success of the investment office by “outperforming benchmarks, being a low-cost solution for an organization that operates in an industry with increasingly tight operating margins, and being the financial backbone of an incredibly innovative and entrepreneurial ecosystem.” By meeting these points, Strein believes it better enables Cleveland Clinic to “have the financial strength and certainty it needs to be the most innovative and resourceful healthcare system in the world.”
All episodes of the Global Investment Leaders podcast are available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts and more. Receive the episodes as soon as they premiere by subscribing today.
April 10, 2023
Rosemont CEO Chas Burkhart will be leading a panel discussion as part of an event hosted by the Association of Investment Management Sales Executives (AIMSE) on April 12 in New York City. Burkhart will lead the panelists through a discussion titled, “Key Issues Impacting Asset Management Businesses and Their Sales & Marketing Professionals.” During the conversation, Burkhart and the panelists will discuss:
- Challenges facing and observations on the future of “traditional” ( long only equity and fixed income) and “alternative” (private equity, private credit, hedge funds and real assets) investment management businesses
- The impact of M&A on our industry and a SWOT discussion of longer-term M&A effects amid the record-breaking deal activity of the last few years
- Factors driving successful or failing sales and marketing efforts
Included on the panel are:
- Yvonne Woo, Managing Director of Alternative Investments & Manager Selection at Goldman Sachs Asset Management
- David Scopelliti, Global Head of Private Debt at Mercer
- Ben Blaisdell, Managing Director, Solutions Oversight & Data Analytics at Bank of America
- Chris O’Grady, Chief Investment Officer at Dakota
To learn more about AIMSE and other upcoming events, visit the AIMSE website here.
March 16, 2023
In this episode of How They Did It, a subseries of Rosemont’s Global Investment Leaders podcast, host Brad Mook is joined by Scott Priebe, Managing Principal and Portfolio Manager at Geneva Capital Management. Based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Geneva is a majority employee-owned investment boutique managing roughly $5 billion in long-only US equity strategies and specializing in small- and mid-cap quality growth.
During their conversation, Priebe shared his unique perspective on investment firm ownership, which has been formed over a series of ownership transitions since Geneva’s founding in 1987. Seeking to grow and diversify the firm’s investment strategies and revenue drivers, in 2014 Priebe and his partners merged with London-based Henderson Group. Yet just two years later, the firm’s new parent organization merged with Denver-based Janus Capital Group, upending Geneva’s strategy for long-term, sustainable growth. It is from this juncture that Priebe shares his insights on why and how he and his partners pursued an MBO and the factors that made it successful, including:
- The catalyst that led Priebe and his partners to seek their independence from their parent organization and return to operating as an independent boutique
- How Priebe and his partners approached the parent management team, with the goal of creating value for both firms and their clients
- The risks and rewards of betting on themselves, particularly amid the competitive headwinds faced by independent, long-only equity managers
- Navigating valuation, financing and the many logistics that are required when completing an MBO
- How Priebe and his partner structured the ownership of newly independent Geneva, offering employee ownership across functions to capitalize on the team’s entrepreneurial spirit
To hear another episode about navigating the complexities of an MBO, be sure to listen to Mook’s recent conversation with Todd Vingers, CFA, who serves as president of the recently launched Leeward Investments.
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All episodes of the Global Investment Leaders podcast are available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts and more. Receive the episodes as soon as they premiere by subscribing today.
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