Frank J. Harmon

Great Lake Advisors' (GLA) equity investment approach focuses on a company's potential to improve its value or earning power. The firm defines earning power as a company's ability to generate profit to reinvest in the business or to distribute to shareholders. Starting with a universe of mid- and large-cap companies, GLA seeks to identify and invest in established companies and industries that they believe will experience increased earning power and whose current valuations suggest that they are underpriced due to low market expectations. GLA identifies appropriate stocks and builds portfolios through a four-step process. The firm generates investment ideas from price and profitability screens, corporate financials and information from company and industry meetings and presentations. Companies exhibiting the potential to improve returns on capital/equity are particularly attractive to GLA. The firm then builds a case for a particular holding by identifying reasons the company may achieve or sustain above-average return on capital and/or equity. They focus on changes that are likely to have positive long-term effects on return on capital, such as improved margins and/or balance sheet, better utilization of assets and cash flow and changes in industry structure and/or management team. GLA then assesses the attractiveness of current valuation of earning power, including p/e ratios and dividend yields-measures. Finally, the firm determines the enhancement to the portfolio. Selections should have a positive impact on the overall portfolio direction and diversification. Though not limited by sector, GLA tends to invest in the stocks of US large-cap companies in the producer manufacturing, finance, consumer non-durables and energy minerals sectors. The firm maintains a very low turnover rate. GLA's process for managing fixed-income investments begins with an assessment of the trends exhibited by each market sector. Their primary focus is on capturing the beneficial effects of long-term trend, rather than making short-term tactical realignments. The firm assesses structural risk/return trade-offs, credit trends, historical yield spreads, the shape of the yield curve and supply/demand. Once GLA has identified sectors offering the best long-term value, they focus on selecting individual issues that offer sufficient liquidity, a meaningful return/risk trade-off and the likelihood of increasing portfolio income.

Wintrust Capital Management's investment philosophy focuses on building fully-invested, comprehensive portfolios. The firm invests in high-quality companies across all sectors. Their investments include: domestic and international equities, ETFs, taxable and tax-free fixed-income securities, mutual funds, options and unit investment trusts (UITs). Wintrust targets companies with superior earnings growth and positive momentum in growth. The firm seeks to invest in the stocks of these companies when their stocks are trading at reasonable valuations. Wintrust does not attempt to time the market. The firm's security selection process is based on a combination of rigorous fundamental and robust multi-factor quantitative screening. Their investment horizon is 1 to 3 years. Wintrust believes this is a sufficient timeframe to allow their investment thesis to play out, while being short enough to remove emotion from stock selection. Wintrust employs thorough testing and consistent strategies to prevent portfolios from holding a security too long should a company's fundamentals fall outside the firm's core purchase parameters. Their investment approach also allows for movement within the portfolio if more attractive investment opportunities are identified. Wintrust believes that proper diversification is the best means to control non-market risk. The firm seeks to control risk by maintaining disciplined portfolio constraints. They carefully and consistently monitor each portfolio's sector, industry, security, style and size weightings to prevent being over- or under-exposed to each particular area relative to the overall market. Greater or lesser weightings within each of these areas are based on Wintrust's view of the economy and markets. Their objective is to provide greater portfolio returns than the market. Wintrust utilizes 5 complementary investment products to build portfolios: (1) large-cap growth (2) mid-cap growth (3) blended growth (4) TSSA and (5) PathMaster. The firm's large-cap growth strategy is suitable for clients seeking individual position management and investments in primarily larger, more seasoned companies. For this strategy Wintrust employs a disciplined, quantitative investment approach that includes a fundamental overlay. Wintrust's mid-cap growth strategy is suitable for clients seeking capital appreciation through investments in individual positions in growth companies with market-caps of $1 billion to $15 billion. In this strategy, the firm begins with a company's fundamentals and then adds a quantitative overlay. The firm's blended growth strategy is suitable for clients that prefer customized, individual position management within the full spectrum of the stock market, including investments that range from international stocks to large-cap stocks. Wintrust begins with a blended portfolio from their large- and mid-cap stock universe and then employ an ETF strategy to gain exposure to international and small-cap benchmarks. Wintrust's quantitatively-based style and size portfolio is referred to as TSSA. This strategy is suitable for clients seeking a diversified portfolio without active investment management. The program uses a quantitatively-driven, bottom-up, multi-factor model that is designed to predict shifts in size and style of equity index performance. Wintrust utilizes 6 ETFs to offer 3 portfolios that are constructed based on the following risk levels: conservative, moderate and aggressive. Wintrust's domestic equity mutual fund, PathMaster, mirrors their moderate TSSA model. The fund's objective is long-term capital growth. Wintrust seeks to achieve this goal by investing primarily in ETFs that track certain domestic equity market segments by size and style and offer the greatest potential for capital appreciation in a given market environment. Fixed-income investments may be added to any of Wintrust's investment strategies to mitigate volatility and generate income. The firm also offers other managed money programs including proprietary and third party management, separately managed accounts (SMAs), optimal blend portfolios and mutual fund wrap programs. Though not limited by sector, Wintrust tends to invest in the stocks of US companies in the producer manufacturing, consumer non-durables, finance and energy minerals sectors. The firm invests across all market-caps, with emphasis on the stocks of large-cap companies. Wintrust maintains a very low turnover rate.

Functions as a College/University

Functions as a College/University

GLA is a value-oriented investment manager that offers fundamental and disciplined equity strategies as well as customized fixed income separately managed solutions along with an open architecture strategy combining SMAs with funds. They offer actively managed equity, fixed income, and alternatives strategies.