Bank Investment Consultant articles from May 2003

Bank Investment Consultant archives from May 2003

Bank Brokerages Exploit the Integrity Factor.
May 1, 2003... Financial services firms can learn a lot about going with the flow of an undulating economy: Bank brokerages have been quietly riding the waves of economic fluctuations like veteran California surfers who know how to skim the crest and avoid...

Compass Buys Agencies in Southwest: Compass Bancshares further expands its insurance presence in the Southwest with Texas and Arizona acquisitions. What's next for the Alabama bank?
May 1, 2003... Compass Bancshares, based in Birmingham, Ala., made two insurance agency acquisitions within a week of each other in late March. First the company struck a deal to buy Mueller & Associates of Tuscon, Ariz. Five days later it concluded a deal to...

People on the Move.
May 1, 2003... Linsco-Private Ledger (LPL Financial Services) has promoted COO Mark Casady to the additional post of president. Casady joined LPL about a year ago. Dave Butterfield, president of LPL since 1989, has turned over the day-to-day responsibilities...

Skidding Annuity Sales Drive New Chassis: Underwriters, in response to tumbling sales, are promoting underused products and developing whole new ones. Bank reps stand to gain big.
May 1, 2003... Sales of both fixed and variable annuities started this year in just about the same fashion as they finished the old one. According to the Kehrer-Jackson National Monthly Bank Annuity Sales Survey, only $2.5 billion in FAs were sold in January....

Odds & Ends.
May 1, 2003... ICBA Financial Services, the retail investment unit of the Independent Community Bankers of America, has formed a partnership with Fiserv Investor Services to give more community banks access to discount brokerage and Internet-trading programs....

Community First's Growth Accelerates: A Colorado insurance acquisition and a new Arizona investment office signal the bank is picking up in 2003 where it left off in 2002. Look out, competitors.
May 1, 2003... Across a wide swath of the U.S., from Green Bay to San Pedro Bay, Community First Bankshares is enthusiastically pursuing its goal of having an insurance presence in each of its 136 markets. Under President and CEO Mark Anderson, the $5.8...

BOK Touts, BOM Pouts: BONY, Mercantile, Boston Private make asset management acquisitions; trust becomes a question; AIM to handle distribution for Invesco.
May 1, 2003... Bank-owned mutual funds are acting more and more like their retail-complex brethren all the time. Most recently, Bank of Oklahoma is touting the recent recognition of its American Performance Funds by Lipper Analytical Services as proof of its...

Kaptain Kelmoore Flies Again: The caped crusader takes on arbitrage pirates. Other new products are from Manulife, FAME, Ibbotson, American Express and Jackson National.
May 1, 2003... Kelmoore Investment Co. has released another comic book about Kaptain Kelmoore, but this time he's battling arbitrage pirates to keep the economy free. Uncovering the Mystery of Covered Calls is available free by visiting www.kelmoore.com or by...

Product Profile: Rebalancing With Wamu, MFS.
May 1, 2003... Investors are retreating to the safety of good, old-fashioned asset allocation strategies, even if intellectuals are now saying that rebalancing is actually a form of market timing. For reps, rebalancing is easiest with individual stocks and...

John Brunett, FNB of Santa Fe: This Detroit native has set up his office in a quiet, private place, not in the middle of a bank. He believes in efficiency, trust and total discretion.
May 1, 2003... In 1998, when John Brunett was hired at First National Bank of Santa Fe, its investment center was fledgling. Three investment reps had come and gone and the two-year old center had only $2 million in assets. Brunett had to build the...

REP DATA.
May 1, 2003... 2002 AUM: $41.1 million Projected 2003 production: $600,000 Accounts: 643 Licenses: Series 6, 7, 24, 63, 65, life, health, variable Copyright 2003 Thomson Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. http://www.thomsonmedia.com...

Bank Brokerages Get Real: Bank of Montreal watched 109,000 online brokerage accounts evaporate since buying CSFBdirect in early 2002. What happened here?
May 1, 2003... When Bank of Montreal spent $500,000 to buy an online brokerage that had already been bought and sold twice in two years-and this at a time when online trading ranked well behind rollerblading in buzz factor-it raised eyebrows. Bank of...

Platform Programs Boost Opportunities: A well-run platform program can mean serious career enhancement. It can also provide advancement opportunities for Series 7 and Series 6 license holders.
May 1, 2003... National City Bank of Cleveland is the latest regional player to undertake a sweeping platform program to get senior bankers-branch managers, assistant managers and top lending officers-licensed as Series 6 financial advisers. From the...

Arvest Bank's Unique TPM Deal: When the tiny Arkansas bank realized it didn't have the firepower to tend to its wealthiest clients, it went looking for it. What it found was RJFS.
May 1, 2003... It takes a big bank to admit it's too small to handle its wealthiest clients. But that's what Arvest Bank of northwest Arkansas did in September 2001. It had a plan, though: Hire Raymond James Financial Services to outsource products and...

ARVEST Private Bank.
May 1, 2003... AUM: $100 million Series 7 Reps: 4 Clients: 100 Copyright 2003 Thomson Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. http://www.thomsonmedia.com http://www.bankinvestmentmktg.com

The Best Bank-Sold Funds And Their Managers.
May 1, 2003... One of the advantages to being a bank-based investment adviser is having three groups of mutual funds from which to chose when building portfolios for clients: the big national retail complexes, of which about half have a significant presence...

Top Large Proprietary Funds.
May 1, 2003... JP Morgan Fleming Asset Management Mid-Cap Value Fund Five-year Performance: 14.07% Assets Under Management: $187 million Portfolio Manager: Jonathan Simon (5.5 years) Mid-cap value might sound esoteric, but this is as...

Large Proprietary Funds.
May 1, 2003... Name Lipper Clas 5-Year Performance JP Morgan: Mid Value; I MCCE 14.07 BlackRock: Intl Opp; I IS 12.82 First Amer: SC Gr Opp; Y SCCE 10.85 ...

Small Proprietary Funds.
May 1, 2003... Name Lipper Class 5-Year Performance Fifth: Mic-Cp Val; I SCVE 6.58 WM: Wst Cst Eqty; A MLCE 6.52 BNY Hmltn: SC Gro; I MCGE ...

Top Small Proprietary Funds.
May 1, 2003... Fifth Third Funds Micro-Cap Value Fund Five-year Performance: 6.58% Assets Under Management: $100 million Portfolio Manager: Denis Amato (five years) That popping noise is not the technology-stock bubble bursting; it is a...

Bank-Distributed Retail Funds.
May 1, 2003... Name Lipper Class 5-Year Performance Fidelity Adv Korea; A XJ 11.03 Merrill Glbl Sm Cap; A GS 10.00 Fidelity Japan Sm Co JA 9.56 ...

Top Retail-Complex Funds.
May 1, 2003... Fidelity Management Advisor Korea Fund Five-Year Performance: 11.03% Assets Under Management: $12.7 million Portfolio Manager: Agus Tandiono (one year) Unlike the other funds profiled here, Fidelity Advisor Korea is a...

Keeping it Real Simple: Clients don't buy the product, but the pitch, according to Jean Scheffenacker, who's Golden Rule is easy: Be honest and sincere and offer only a few products. The First Mariner Financial Services head should know: She boosted GDC to $1 million in 2002, a hike of 46.6%.
May 1, 2003... When Jean Scheffenacker was toiling at her previous job as head of the investment center at a competing Maryland bank, she stumbled across an issue of Baltimore magazine, which featured a cover story about First Mariner Bank Chairman Edwin F....

First Mariner Financial Services.
May 1, 2003... 2002 AUM: $30 million, up 131% Total Gross Dealer Commission: $1 million, up 46.6% Client Number: 350, up 16.3% Total reps: 70 Series 7: 2 Series 6: 26 Life and health: 70 Copyright 2003 Thomson Media Inc. All...

Keeping Up With the (Edward) Joneses: A slipping economy isn't always a bad thing. Just ask bank BDs, which claimed a 16% hike in total 2002 profit. Guess which product was most popular? Yep. First, the reliable FA, and then the VA.
May 1, 2003... Bank broker-dealer profit rose a surprising 16% in 2002 on the strength of fixed- and variable-annuity sales, as reps exploited conservative investor attitudes in the third year of an economic downturn. In addition, revenue rose 3% in...

Wachovia Aids Its Brand: The behemoth has launched an ambitious ad campaign aimed at the wealthy. It plans to be No. 1 in this space by 2005, even if that requires double-digit revenue growth. Should competitors worry?
May 1, 2003... Don't talk to Wachovia about the importance of brand. The North Carolina-based behemoth, which is still integrating First Union since their 2001 merger, has launched an ambitious advertising campaign to make its wealth management division a...

Can Gold Calm a Stormy Portfolio?: Depressed for 20 years, gold is coming back, but for how long? Our specialists debate one of the thorniest issues among investment advisers. Once again, the age-old debate rears its head.
May 1, 2003... J. Taylor Editor of J. Taylor's Gold & Technology Stocks newsletter and www.miningstocks.com Demand for gold far outpaces supply and the precious mineral is negatively correlated to equities, making gold-mining stocks the perfect...

The Rise of the Corporate 529: Firms are finding that corporate 529s, company-based college-savings funds, offer a recruiting tool for the prospective employee who has everything. They're proving a boon for advisers, too.
May 1, 2003... Though 529 college-savings funds have been around for five years, their newer cousin-the corporate version-is becoming increasingly popular across the nation. "They're growing rapidly," says Bruce Harrington, vp of product development at...

Bond ETFs Deliver 1-2 Punch: This new generation of ETFs provides low cost, tax efficiency and trading flexibility TFs also boast lower expense ratios than bond mutual funds.And did we mention tax-free dividends?
May 1, 2003... For many investors eager to make a buck, the pendulum has long been swinging toward bonds, prompting a new generation of exchange-traded bond funds that are more profitable than their mutual fund cousins. Variations of fixed ETFs are...

Fresh Retirement Planning Ideas: Where you start with your clients will determine where they finish: lying in a hammock on a tropical island or flipping burgers just to pay the rent. Start with their bank statements.
May 1, 2003... Today's retirement market is a bad mix of too many options chasing too many uninformed and increasingly desperate consumers. Clients have heard the horror stories of three generations struggling in the same house and of affluent couples driven...

Do Suitability Issues Loom?: Sales of both FAs and VAs through banks almost equal direct-issuer sales. The difference? Many buyers at banks think they're getting an insured investment, when they're not. Only 18% understand the truth.
May 1, 2003... Banks can be pleased with their progress in gaining on issuers themselves as the preferred source of annuities. However, that gain in popularity has come with a potential poison pill: A vast majority of consumers believe these investments...

Outfoxing the Estate Tax: Uncertainty around the estate tax repeal, expected to be completed in 2010, has prompted insurers to be proactive-and to teach reps to exploit that ambiguity to increase sales now. Wait, these are insurers?
May 1, 2003... Though insurance is an inherent part of any estate-transfer strategy, banks have been slow to push this element of wealth management, preferring to pass it onto their trust and private-banking brethren ot any more, as progressive insurers...

Scorecard Scores With New Tool: Now that the economic downturn has forced more banks to focus on the bottom line, an eight-year-old tech firm is enjoying the fanfare surrounding its new tool to track rep production.
May 1, 2003... Compliance and portfolio performance are old-hat for Investment Scorecard, but the Nashville-based software company has just rolled out a sexier way to market its product by creating a management-reporting tool aimed at banks eager to track rep...

Growing Wiser: While the economic downturn continues, investors are finding positive possibilities in conservative investments.
May 1, 2003... Every investor is different. They all have different goals, different lifestyles, and different needs. Regardless of how different each of your client's individual goals may be, there is one thing that all of them are looking for from their...

American Century Heritage Fund.
May 1, 2003... Linda Peterson is Vice President and Senior Portfolio Manager. Kurt Stalzer is Vice President and Portfolio Manager. Investment Outlook It's been a difficult environment for growth investors, but our time-tested, bottom-up approach...

Eaton Vance Tax-Managed Growth Fund 1.2.
May 1, 2003... Duncan W. Richardson, CFA, Chief Equity Investment Officer and Senior Vice President of Eaton Vance Management. Investment Outlook: Historically, success in the equity market comes from having a long-term perspective and realistic...

Fidelity Advisor International Capital Appreciation Fund.
May 1, 2003... Kevin McCarey, portfolio manager. Investment Outlook As portfolio manager of Fidelity Advisor International Capital Appreciation Fund, I utilize bottom-up stock selection and focus on companies that I believe show good unit and revenue...

Janus Adviser Capital Appreciation Fund.
May 1, 2003... Scott Schoelzel, Portfolio Manager Investment Outlook Although signs have surfaced indicating that economic growth may be accelerating, global tensions, consumer anxieties and weak corporate spending continue to weigh heavily on the...

John Hancock Multi Cap Growth Fund.
May 1, 2003... Anurag Pandit, CFA, vice president and portfolio manager. Bernice Behar, CFA, senior vice president and portfolio manager. Investment Outlook In our view, the advantage of a multi-cap growth fund is its ability to seek out companies...

Liberty Growth Stock Fund.
May 1, 2003... Erik P. Gustafson has been portfolio manager of the fund since 1997, and has managed the predecessor since February 1995. Investment Outlook The current market volatility has affected Liberty Growth Stock Fund, as well as the rest of...

Pioneer Mid Cap Growth Fund.
May 1, 2003... Eric Weigel, manager of the Fund, has over 10 years of investment experience and directs Pioneer's growth team. Investment Outlook Growth stocks-and particularly technology stocks-have shown signs of life this year, even in the face of...

SSGA Agressive Equity Fund.
May 1, 2003... Managed by the U.S. active equity team within State Street Global Advisors Global Quantitative Equity Group. Investment Outlook The U.S conomy continues to chart a bumpy course. Until we get some clarity on the Iraq situation and the...

Thornburg Core Growth Fund.
May 1, 2003... Alex Motola joined Thornburg Investment Management in 2000 and has managed the fund since inception. Outlook Our Mission at Thornburg Investment Management is to preserve and increase the real wealth of our shareholders after...

The Golden Years: Retirement planning remains a big concern for many investors.
May 1, 2003... Investors have historically made their retirement fund a major aspect of their investment strategy, and throughout the economic climate that we have been suffering through for the last 18 months, many people are worrying more and more about...

Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards, Inc.
May 1, 2003... Rick Adkins, CFP(r), Chair, Board of Governors As a professional regulatory organization, CFP Board fosters professional standards in personal financial planning so that the public values, has access to and benefits from competent and...

National Financial, a Fidelity Investments company.
May 1, 2003... Norm Malo, president, National Financial As more Americans change jobs and approach retirement, understanding what to do with their accumulated workplace retirement savings plan assets can be a complicated decision and one that can have a...

Financial Profiles, Inc.
May 1, 2003... Ron Smith, Director of Business Analysis, Financial Profiles, Inc. As baby boomers get ready to retire, many will not have defined benefit plans to provide income, and their 401(k) plans are worth far less than in years past. Some retirees...

Investment Management Consultants Association.
May 1, 2003... Investment Management Consultants Association (IMCA) is the professional association whose mission is to promote education, ethics and standards for the growing investment consulting profession. IMCA members across the globe provide consulting...

LPL Financial Services.
May 1, 2003... LPL embraces retirement planning as an integral part of comprehensive financial planning and has developed a system to support representatives at all stages of the process. Corporate qualified plans have been a focus for both small and...

The Phoenix Companies, Inc.
May 1, 2003... Are clients asking you about retirement income strategies? One way they can create consistent retirement income is through immediate annuities, which convert a lump sum payment into an income stream delivering payments monthly, quarterly,...

War Talk is Dangerous. Don't Touch It!: Successful sales reps share three common traits: empathy, drive and optimism. "Opinionated" is not on that list, however, and for good reason. War talk, pro or con, blocks empathetic listening.
May 1, 2003... Should you be having a dialogue with your clients about war with Iraq? After all, there's no escaping the 24-7 coverage on the All-Iraq, All-The-Time networks. The simple answer is: No. There are some topics like politics, religion and...