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Tuesday, February 26, 2008

PA investment advisor Lowry gets a new gig

Vincent Lowry, financial adviser to Pennsylvania state treasurers and local governments, is the new chairman of an advisory firm that designs investment funds tied to Standard & Poor’s stock indices.
“It was Vince’s idea,” said Sean O’Hara, president of month-old RevenueShares Investor Services LLC, Paoli, which last week rolled out three new funds that mimic S&P benchmarks but are weighted to rank index members by corporate revenues. Revenues trump the more usual measure, stock-market capitalization, which skew indexes toward past winners instead of future gains, according to Lowry.
Lowry is chairman of the funds’ investment adviser, VTL Associates LLC. The funds include RevenueShares Large Cap (NYSE: RWL), tied to major S&P 500 companies; RevenueShares Mid Cap Fund (NYSE:RWK), based to the S&P 400; and RevenueShares Small Cap Fund (NWSE:RWJ), which shadows the S&P 600.
Lowry, a 20-year veteran of Citigroup and its SmithBarney affiliate before he started VTL in 2004, said he’s been helping develop investment products, including some that his government clients use, alongside his consulting work since the early 1990s.
For example, the Board of City Trusts, which operates Girard College and Wills Eye Hospital from its $1 billion investment portfolio,  had $38 million invested in stock-index funds that Lowry says he set up through Valley Forge Trust Co. as of last year.
How does he keep his interests separate from his clients? ”I don’t take a fee from consulting clients for doing this,” Lowry said. “The key, in the eyes of your clients and the SEC, is how you manage potential conflicts.” He said he’ll keep his current consulting clients, but won’t solicit others, now that he’s in charge at VTL.
O’Hara, a former divisional manager at investment wholesaler Planco LLC/The Hartford, said his new firm charges yearly fees and costs totaling 0.49 percent of assets under management, though it’s lower for individually-managed institutional accounts. Rivals range from index-investment giant Vanguard Group of Malvern to Pasadena-based Research Affiliates LLC, started by Lowry’s fellow Citi alumnus and index-fund theorist Robert Arnott.
Under a previous name, Pacer Financial, RevenueShares has picked up $1.4 billion in client investments over the past two years, O’Hara said. Clients include SEPTA, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania , and the New York City police and firefighters’ pension funds, he said.

 

 
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About Joseph N. DiStefano
Joseph N. DiStefano writes this blog to feed his PhillyDeals column in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Joe has been a member of Bloomberg LP’s New York Finance Team, wrote the book “Comcasted,” taught writing at St. Joseph’s University, and studied economics and history at Penn. Reach Joe at 215-854-5194 and JoeD@phillynews.com
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