Investment Review Committee (IRC)

All Advising Representatives (Portfolio Managers) and Associate Advising Representatives are accountable to the IRC. With a committee-based, rigorous portfolio building process, our portfolio management team seeks out which assets, sectors and geographical exposures make the most sense for meeting clients’ investment objectives under real-time market conditions. To minimize investor risk and maximize returns, we combine this methodology with targeted active investments and sophisticated option strategies. While each Portfolio Manager may have their own approach, all investments and strategies are vetted through the IRC.

Our mission is to deliver superior investment advice and discretionary portfolio management expertise with outstanding service, holding all Portfolio Managers on the Croft platform to the highest standard.

Why the Committee?

The Investment Review Committee (IRC) at Croft is responsible for all investment decisions.  While one Portfolio Manager is responsible for the research, each security that is used in a portfolio must be vetted by the IRC.

There are several reasons for this process:

A committee approach adds the benefit of gaining multiple perspectives. 

When an investment idea is presented to the IRC, the committee has a chance to ask more questions or offer additional insights that the primary analyst might not considered. 

A committee approach often leads to the gathering of additional information.

This rigorous vetting process helps in making a more informed/higher quality decision.

A committee ensures continuity.  

If one or more Portfolio Managers are absent, the committee is always present to ensure the process continues.

Research Process

A good portfolio is also diversified by security, industry and/or asset class.  We review primary source information such as annual reports and financial statements to help us understand the company’s business model and its position in the industry.  Fundamentally we look for growing revenues, sustainable cash flows, increasing margins, among many other things.  Things we also like to see in a good investment are competitive and unique products, superior brands and dominant market share.  With respect to capital allocation, we favor companies with low debt, share buy back programs and a history of dividend growth and acquisitions.

In conducting our fundamental research, the IRC’s core process includes, but is not limited to, obtaining investment ideas from our proprietary stock screen, seeking companies with characteristics that have been associated with alpha (market outperformance) in the past.  As active managers we also take ideas from pure factor plays such as momentum, value, quality, low volatility and yield.  Since the factors that may contribute to alpha change over time along with the macroeconomic environment, we also monitor the financial markets and where we are at in the business cycle for different conditions that may enhance or detract from our current screens.

Having selected one or more good candidates for investment, we review sell side reports to determine what the market’s consensus is on a stock.  The timing and tactics of the IRC’s investment decision then depends on relative valuations to ensure we are paying a good price, technical analysis to assess relative volatility and the timing of trade execution, and the probability of a good target return of a type and period suited to the individual fund(s) or portfolio(s) selected.

Investment Fund Managers (IFM)

As Investment Fund Managers, Croft works with discretionary Portfolio Managers to design and actively manage custom investment funds. Each fund has specific objectives and can be used in combination with one another, as with our two- or three-pool client Mandates, or independently as an addition to other diversified portfolios and separately managed accounts. These different funds enable Our Portfolio Managers to manage more actively and tactically, as well to implement option strategies more efficiently.