Loomis Sayles: Meet the Team
How do you explain who you are and what you do? Loomis Sayles commissioned us to create a compelling video that would explain the philosophy of the Custom Income Strategies team and showcase their approach to solving client challenges.
Speakers: Loomis Sayles Team: Pramila Agrawaln (PhD, CFA) - Head of Custom Income Strategies (CIS), Portfolio Manager; Michael Frederikse (CFA) - Senior Investment Analyst; Mike Skurka (CFA) - Investment Director; Stephanie Goldych Abelard - Associate Investment Director
Mike Frederikse: What do we do? That's a great question.
Copy on screen: What is CIS?
Pramila Agrawal: I'm Pramila Agrawal. Back in 2018, I created custom income strategies (CIS) to meet the growing need for custom fixed income solutions.
Mike Frederikse: If you kind of look at the industry over the past 10 or 15 years, we've seen the growth of precision investing.
Pramila Agrawal: We don't talk about what products we have, we ask what is your need? And then we build a solution around what the client needs.
Stephanie Goldych Abelard: These are actively- managed accounts. They are managed by a very deep and experienced team.
Mike Skurka: What we're doing here is using the intellectual firepower, the analytical firepower that we have available to analyze a custom client solution.
Mike Frederikse: A client can either be an actual individual, it can be an institution, it can be a financial advisor, but generally they're coming to us with some investment goal in mind. And really it all starts with a conversation.
Pramila Agrawal: To figure out their investment objectives, their risk tolerance, their capital preservation needs and their liquidity preferences. Once we have that down, my team proposes a solution for the client.
Mike Skurka: We recognize that each one of them are sophisticated, that they're going to have unique needs and we have the tools to make sure that we can adapt and give clients what they need.
Stephanie Goldych Abelard: There are so many customization options out there. With the private accounts, the financial advisor could collaborate directly with Loomis Sayles and they could still input their ideas into their end client portfolios, but then turn over the asset management and let us do what we're good at doing.
Pramila Agrawal: The world of global financial markets is becoming increasingly complex, interconnected and very entwined with what is going on in different pockets of asset classes. There is a lot of data available that requires a lot of analysis.
Mike Frederikse: My background is definitely by the numbers. You know, the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help my model.
Mike Skurka: Mike Frederikse has a very keen analytical eye. There is no project, no analytical ask that anybody can make of him that he can't manage and turn around very quickly.
Mike Frederikse: But I also like to kind of understand the story of how the numbers got there, what's going on, what are they telling me? What can we do about this?
Pramila Agrawal: So my role is to make sure that our portfolios are always balanced in risks. They are always, full of the best ideas that we are doing, relative value trades that make sense.
Stephanie Goldych Abelard: She's kind of the, the mastermind I would say, behind the private accounts.
Mike Skurka: There's no aspect or no plane at which we can analyze an investment goal that she isn't instantly an expert at being able to articulate and implement.
Stephanie Goldych Abelard: And my role is really to help with the product development and product strategy.
Mike Frederikse: I couldn't survive a day in this job without Stephanie.
Stephanie Goldych Abelard: Being here for 15 years, - I know who to talk to, to get things done.
Pramila Agrawal: Every day there is a lot of collaboration. There is camaraderie. We are all pulling in the same direction.
Mike Skurka: I really enjoy the people I work with.
Mike Frederikse: He's just incredibly consistent, extremely kind, very engaging, and understands the investment strategy really, really well.
Mike Skurka: I also have a lot of empathy for clients and I try to put myself into their shoes and say, what is it that the client needs and what is causing them to ask us the questions that they're asking?
Mike Frederikse: And that's really what we're after is trying to find what's going to work for them best. Customization brings value. Customization adds value. CIS has customization as our specialty. That's what we were born to do.
Endframe: Loomis Sayles. Visit Loomissayles.com
