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April 01, 2004 at 02:00 AM
So what do advisors think about PCR? Hillview Capital Advisors of Ardmore, Pennsylvania, is an advisory firm Chris Snyder referred me to as an example of what PCR can do. While it was not one of a dozen advisory firms that were given Web demos at my request, Hillview’s experience is real and it is an advisory firm to the super-wealthy.
“We have struggled for years with reporting and technology,” says David Spungen, co-founder of Hillview, which manages $700 million for 75 clients. Spungen says clients have a median $10 million of investable assets, and numerous clients have net worths from $30 million to $100 million, he says.
To test PCR Insight, Spungen several months ago handed over one of his most complex clients to Snyder. “I said to Chris, ‘If you can do this, I’m sold,’” recalls Spungen. “He did it.”
PCR Insight, according to Spungen, electronically replicated reports that Hillview had for years created manually. “The amount of time my guys now spend on that client went from one week to a couple of hours,” says Spungen, who now has all 75 of his clients on PCR Insight and is checking data before giving clients access to it.
Tom Connelly, an advisor at Keats Connelly & Associates in Phoenix, was initially unimpressed after seeing PCR’s Web demo. “I already give my clients reports from a combination of electronically downloaded sources and manually inputting the other assets,” he says. “But when I got to thinking about how I can scale my business, I realized that PCR could be valuable.” Connelly also says that allowing clients to see their detailed balance daily would allay a great fear of the super-wealthy: that they might somehow misplace a few hundred thousand dollars or more because their affairs are so far-flung.
