Proactive Duration Management
The use of a sophisticated and knowledgeable fixed income manager enables investors to safeguard principal while capitalizing on the countless opportunities that exist in the massive fixed income marketplace. A passive buy and hold or "laddered" approach leads to neglect and places portfolios in a reactive and at-risk position to potential material events such as downgrades, issuer calls, interest rate fluctuations, and untimely reinvestment opportunities.

Experience
We are a very unique company as we have over 180 years of collective fixed income industry experience encompassing portfolio management, investment banking, underwriting and trading in both the Municipal Bond and Taxable industries. This dynamic creates a foundation of fundamental and in-depth knowledge that we believe is unparalleled in the industry.

Product Access and Price Efficiencies
Our clients benefit from the coverage we recieve from an extensive network of over 60 national and regional securities firms and banks. This network affords our clients the opportunity to participate in virtually all new issue or "primary" underwritings rather than a limited number. In addition, we buy and sell bonds on our clients' behalf in the secondary market at "institutional" price levels creating enhanced opportunities, efficiencies and cost savings. 

Technology
It is essential to use state of the art technology in the investment management process. To that end, we have invested heavily in advanced portfolio management tools and data services enabling us to develop sophisticated modeling programs that assist in the construction and ongoing management of our clients' portfolios. Those services are Bloomberg® Analytics, Perform® FPC by Investortools and Axys™.

Credit Research
While fixed income is generally viewed as a conservative asset class, we are strong proponents of sector and credit diversification and use a value-oriented approach. We employ a vigorous fundamental and technical credit evaluation process to identify and capitalize on investment opportunities to enhance total return and mitigate risk in our clients' portfolios. In the municipal bond arena, we never rely on bond insurance and buy securities based on each issuer's stand-alone ability to meet debt service requirements.