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April 25, 2012 at 06:31 AM
Harold Kotler, CEO and CIO of Gannett Welsh & Kotler LLC
Fixed Income Award:
Gannett Welsh & Kotler LLC
Municipal Bond Strategy
This is an expanded profile of one of Investment Advisor-Prima Capital’s 8th annual Separately Managed Account Managers of the Year. View the complete article with all the winners here. Read about the process of choosing this year’s winners here.
Predictions of mass default, European sovereign debt, outlooks from Bill Gross, Bernanke’s shenanigans—anyone still think fixed income isn’t “sexy?”
It’s dominated headlines since the crisis began and for good reason; when done right, there is alpha to be had, despite current conventional wisdom about the availability of yield. Gannett Welsh & Kotler is one of those firms doing it right, and the reason the Boston-based money manager’s municipal bond strategy took the fixed income award this year.
“We have a top-down/bottom-up approach,” says Nancy Angell, GW&K’s senior vice president who co-directs the firm’s fixed income investments along with John Fox. “In rising interest rate environments, we extend out a bit longer. In declining rate environments, we’ll shorten our maturities and take more of a defensive position. We’re total-return-focused and our alpha comes from our positioning on the yield curve.”
The firm, founded in 1974, is run by CEO and CIO Harold Kotler, a Babson College alum who joined the firm a year later. Angell has been with the firm for 27 years, Fox for almost 22, and four of their five traders have 10 years under their belts.
“We tend to be a bit longer in our duration and more active in our management than many of our competitors,” Angell says.
“The muni space is dominated by the retail market,” Fox adds. “Retail investors think risk comes from longer durations, but the primary concern is actually reinvestment risk. You have to reinvest at lower and lower rates that continually decrease the investment capital. Recognizing this, our bias has been to worry about deflation, which we’ve warned our clients about for 20 years.”
