Philly firm increases its investment capabilities

Thomas Coyle

13 June 2008

Capital manager Davidson Trust links up with investment-platform provider. In a significant departure, Devon, Pa.-based Davidson Trust Company has expanded its investment-product roster with help from wealth-management platform provider Fortigent. The move gives Davidson Trust, which has a long pedigree as an all-proprietary asset manager, access to outside investments in a bid to bring in new clients and win additional assets from existing clients.

"We are looking to build a truly customized investment solution for our investors, and our relationship with Fortigent will help us to achieve this goal" says Davidson Trust's CEO Alvin Clay. "Our sense of the market is that there is still a place for traditional portfolio management, but also an interest in a 'core-and-explore' approach, and an increasingly strong market for a full open-architecture solution."

Quietly excellent

Earlier this year Davidson Trust -- formerly Davidson Capital Management -- became the first Philadelphia-area affiliate of Boston Private Financial Holdings .

Clay, who joined the firm at the time of its merger with BPFH, respects Davidson Trust's legacy as an old-line capital management firm focused on coordinating the investment, tax and fiduciary services to its high-net-worth clients, but thinks its asset growth over the previous decade or so had been less than spectacular.

"This has been a quietly excellent company for the past 20 or 30 years," says Clay. "I'm trying to change the 'quietly' part of that."

And Clay thinks partnering with Fortigent stands to put Davidson Trust on a growth trajectory by giving clients -- existing and prospective -- more choices.

"Clients fit into different profiles: some want a traditional portfolio of stocks and bonds with individual names -- perhaps around a concentrated holding -- and they have good reasons for wanting that; there are others who like that too, but they also want to supplement their portfolios with managers" and another group wants an all-best-of-breed" approach, according to Clay.

First question

"The first question I would ask when assessing would be, 'Do you have expertise in selecting and monitoring managers?' By partnering with Fortigent we're able to say, 'Yes, we are; we're good at it," says Clay.

And Clay thinks Davidson Trust's Fortigent-supported "hybrid-architecture" offering may help distinguish the firm among local competitors -- among them several well-known multifamily offices, a number of big-bank affiliated investment advisories, the usual contingent of full-service and independent brokerages and a passel of boutiques.

"I don't like to use the word 'unique,' but gives us an uncommon offering that lets us to match clients with our own internal management, open architecture or a core-and-explore blend of the two," says Clay -- who, up until about 18 months ago was CEO of Pitcairn, a Jenkintown, Pa.-based multifamily office that also uses Fortigent's investment and performance-reporting capabilities.

Another potential benefit to expanding Davidson Trust's investment capabilities with help from Fortigent is the chance to provide investment-consulting services to small institutions.

"There's a world of endowments in the $50-million range looking for help right now," says Clay.

Davidson Trust manages about $1 billion, mainly for high-net-worth individuals and families.

Rockville, Md.-based Fortigent has about 45 institutional clients and approximately $20 billion in assets on its platform. -FWR

Purchase reproduction rights to this article.