Emerging Manager Program

Emerging managers - typically firms with less than $3 billion under management or with a track record of less than three years - are often overlooked by plan sponsors. Frequently they are too new to register on financial databases and they often face minimum size requirement hurdles imposed by large plan sponsor searches.

In 2000, PFM Advisors established a program to manage an emerging/minority manager fund of funds program for institutional clients. Our research efforts identify new emerging manager candidates through industry contacts, investment literature and general networking. Ultimately, our emerging managers program introduces institutional investors to a pool of untapped investment management talent.

Investing in emerging firms can be time-consuming for a plan's investment staff because it requires on-site visits and ongoing calls with each manager before hiring. PFM Advisors relieves this burden from the plan sponsor. We assume this responsibility and continuously evaluate emerging investment firms on qualitative and quantitative standards, such as portfolio data, staff qualifications and regulatory compliance.

In addition, PFM Advisors' pools a variety of emerging managers so that investors can benefit from the synergies they create. PFM Advisors' primary focus is on identifying exceptionally talented emerging managers and constructing investment programs designed to outperform client-specified benchmarks.