2019 Asset Manager Awards: Segall Bryant & Hamill, Short Term Taxable Bond Strategy

James D. Dadura Title: Director of Fixed Income, Principal Years with present firm: 20 years Years in financial services: 24 years Investment focus/Asset class focus: Fixed Income

Asset management firm: Segall Bryant & Hamill Firm’s headquarters: Chicago Year firm was founded: 1994 Number of employees and/or partners: 128 employees/38 partners Assets under management/advisement as of Dec. 31, 2018: $18.6 billion

Segall Bryant & Hamill’s Short Term Taxable Bond strategy won the Asset Manager Award in the fixed income category this year for being more resilient than its peers and focusing on small-issuance fixed income products, which have less than $500 million outstanding.

Envestnet analysts say that “in periods of volatility, ETFs and large asset managers tend to sell off their largest, most liquid holdings to meet redemptions, putting downward pressure on pricing, while SBH’s smaller-sized issues are more resilient from a valuation standpoint.”

In 2018, this certainly was the case, they note. Plus, in the volatile fourth quarter, smaller overlooked issues outperformed larger issues: 0.773 vs. -0.195. The strategy’s “absolute returns for the year landed SBH in the top decile of the [fixed income] universe, while risk-adjusted returns landed it in the top quartile,” according to Envestnet.

Jim Dadura, director of the fixed income group that manages $11 billion, says this team has the same investment philosophy as the rest of the SBH.

“We’re focused on three key things,” he explains. The first is providing consistently strong returns for clients. “We’ve found great opportunities to do this by investing in high quality securities that are overlooked by many other managers,” Dadura says.

Second, “We’re very bottom up focused, and we focus on fundamental research of risk controls over market timing,” the portfolio manager explains.