John Cassarini

Provides brokerage services

Develops infrastructure management software products

Eagle Boston Investment Management is a small-cap core manager with a value bias. They seek to build portfolios consisting of the stocks of high quality growth and value companies that have the potential to improve in growth and profitability beyond the market's current expectations that are trading at a discount to their intrinsic or private market values. The firm uses proprietary, bottom-up, fundamental research to identify and invest in a limited number of small- and medium-sized companies that meet certain business and valuation criteria. Eagle Boston's comprehensive due diligence process typically includes company and competitor visits and the development of proprietary analysis and models to value their holdings. The firm's investment approach is designed to create an opportunity for strong investment returns while also reducing downside risk. Eagle Boston seeks to invest in companies that have 3 to 4 times the upside growth potential compared to their downside risk. They look for companies operating in industries with favorable supply/demand dynamics. They also look for companies in industries with a competitive environment that allows for attractive returns on capital. Companies should have clean balance sheets, neutral-to-positive free cash flow and stable-to-improving margins, returns and earnings.

Ingalls & Snyder is a long-term investor that uses bottom-up research to examine balance sheets valuations and possible risk/return ratios. The firm constructs portfolios for clients based on their own fundamental research and securities analysis, and invest across multiple asset classes, including US and global equities, taxable and tax-exempt bonds, listed options, private placements, exchange traded funds and mutual funds.

For active fixed-income, LBAM's decision-making process incorporates controlled duration decisions, sector decisions, and individual issue valuation decisions. They base interest rate and sector-related investment decisions on our economic growth forecast. The firm uses risk exposure analysis and risk budgeting models to quantify and manage risks associated with strategies that they design to add value relative to the benchmark index. Individual issue selections result from internal research generated by research specialists. They diversify holdings to reduce credit exposure to individual issuers. Eligible investments for core strategies include US dollar denominated investment-grade securities; for core plus strategies the universe of securities expands to include high yield. For passive bond indexing, LBAM seeks to take advantage of risk premiums as they are reflected in individual security prices. These premiums offer compensation for accepting credit and structure risks associated with individual issues. Explicit quantification and control of risks are at the heart of this investment process. The firm uses proprietary risk exposure analysis to analyze yield curve factors and spread-related factors. For each yield curve and spread factor, the portfolio is very closely matched to the index to ensure that the portfolio earns the same return as the index for any change in interest rates or change in sector spreads. Based on internally generated research, they integrate individual issue selections into the portfolio without disrupting the integrity of the portfolio structure. Holdings are diversified to reduce credit exposure to individual issuers. Eligible investments include securities included in the index, plus those that are their equivalents in terms of credit and structure risks. LBAM's high yield bond management decision-making process begins with a macro-economic framework for determining the appropriate portfolio structure according to defensive versus cyclical industries and appropriate quality orientation (between high BB to low B). Once they have established the overall structure, the firm determines specific industry weights and individual issuer selections. Their research analysts focus on identifying securities that exhibit improving credit fundamentals while avoiding those that experience deterioration in their credit quality. LBAM diversifies holdings to reduce credit exposure to individual issuers. Eligible investments include dollar denominated bonds rated below investment-grade including Rule 144A securities and the full range of structures such as pay-in-kind bonds, interest reset bonds and other instruments that are consistent with high yield investing.