$8 Billion Morgan Stanley Team From Chicago Focuses On Impact Investing

Crew Title: Stephans Van Liew and Oiler Group

Agency: Graystone Consulting from Morgan Stanley
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Senior Members: Kristina Van Liew, Linda Stephans, Erik Oiler

Location: Chicago, IL

Crew Custodied Belongings: $8 billion

Forbes Rankings: Prime Wealth Administration Groups Non-public Wealth, Greatest-In-State Wealth Administration Groups

Background: Linda Stephans and Kristina Van Liew first started working collectively whereas at Northern Belief
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within the Eighties, the place they spent practically 20 years. They every had a background in business banking earlier than turning into advisors and formally launched their follow after Van Liew joined Stephans at Merrill Lynch in 2006, progressively turning into one of many bigger female-led funding consulting practices within the trade. With 14 members on the staff at the moment, they work with a choose handful of each personal and institutional shoppers—by no means greater than 50 relationships in complete, together with a number of the largest nonprofits and endowments within the nation. “Our staff’s hallmark has been to develop our follow in a means that we are able to proceed to supply a excessive contact and hands-on expertise for our shoppers,” says Stephans. “The institutional consulting expertise additionally offers us a novel vantage level and strategy that actually advantages our advanced household workplace shoppers.”

Aggressive Edge: Van Liew cites her staff’s function as an early pioneer within the influence investing discipline a number of a long time in the past as a major aggressive benefit. “We have now a easy objective—attempting to assist households and huge endowments to develop not solely their monetary capital but additionally their social capital,” she says. “We‘ve been lucky to have a entrance row seat but additionally a loud voice as this entire space of specialization has continued to evolve.” The overwhelming majority of the staff’s $8 billion in managed property are invested in a means that aligns with a consumer’s values or social and environmental priorities. Producing a constructive social or environmental influence with consumer property could also be far more time consuming work and likewise requires extra specialised sources and a really holistic strategy, nevertheless it really creates higher efficiency and draw back resilience for shoppers over the long term, the companions say.

Funding Philosophy/Technique: The staff makes use of a complete funding philosophy that depends on closely personalized applications constructed from the bottom up for every consumer. “The objective is to ship on each ends—reaching monetary outcomes but additionally transferring the needle for social and environmental causes shoppers care about,” says Van Liew. “Our elementary philosophy is absolutely primarily based round an endowment mannequin that embraces strategic asset allocation initially with an emphasis on broad diversification.” For some rich shoppers, that will imply public investments, whereas for establishments, the staff could use a wide range of complementary personal market or different investments, for instance. The staff additionally doesn’t handle cash themselves, as an alternative doing the due diligence to hunt out specialist third occasion managers in each asset class—with over 400 supervisor conferences final yr alone. “Discovering these best-in-class third occasion managers has actually helped our shoppers climate uneven and unpredictable markets,” provides Stephans. “Our precedence is to know and reply to every of our shoppers’ distinctive and particular wants in a collaborative and academic spirit that’s absolutely personalized and places the shoppers on the heart.”

Funding Outlook: Each companions emphasize how vital it’s to deflect the noise of the second and keep centered on a long run strategic plan. “We predict the highway forward will stay difficult for a time period earlier than it will get higher,” says Van Liew. “We do anticipate charges to remain larger for longer and that is one thing that the market has not absolutely digested but.” The staff predicts that volatility gained’t go away anytime quickly with seemingly a extra muted outlook for public equities over the following a number of years. “We’re specializing in managers who’re high quality oriented—supervisor choice has been our golden ticket,” says Van Liew, whereas Stephans provides, “it’s vital to be nimble and be ready to navigate continuous change.”