Unique Group Provides Investment Consulting Services to Institutional and HNW Investors
NEW YORK, NY – Morgan Stanley Smith Barney LLC has formed Graystone Consulting (“Graystone”) to provide high-level investment consulting advice to institutional investors and the upper-tier private wealth market.
According to Patrick Schussman, CFA, CIMA, Director of Graystone Consulting, “Graystone is a distinct business that enables accomplished investment consulting teams to draw upon Morgan Stanley Smith Barney’s asset allocation and investment manager research and analytics.” The teams also have access to performance reporting, custody services and other institutional-quality capabilities.
Graystone is an outgrowth of Citi Institutional Consulting, which was formed in 2006 and is ranked 4th in the nation out of the top 25 largest investment consulting firms.1
Graystone is currently comprised of 30 institutional-focused teams in geographically diverse locations across North America. Each team is led by one or more Institutional Consulting Directors who average more than 20 years of professional investment experience and, at a minimum, possess a CFA, CIMA or other advanced designation or degree. Each team also includes experienced manager and technical analysts, reporting specialists, client-service professionals and support staff.
Graystone teams also draw upon the extensive manager due diligence efforts of one of the consulting industry’s largest investment advisor research teams, comprised of nearly 60 analysts.
Current institutional clients include corporate retirement plans, foundations and endowments, health care organizations, state and local governments, and Taft-Hartley plans. Graystone also offers an array of specialized consulting services to wealthy families and family offices.
“Based on the expertise within our teams and our unsurpassed research capabilities, we are confident Graystone Consulting will continue the legacy of Citi Institutional Consulting and grow into an even more powerful presence in the investment consulting community,” said James Tracy, Director of the Consulting Group at Morgan Stanley Smith Barney. “We are especially well-prepared to deliver the advice clients need as the markets continue to recover.”
Graystone Consulting provides a complete range of investment consulting services to institutional and private clients. Tailored investment advice is delivered by Institutional Consulting Directors, experienced investment professionals, who are backed by a dedicated consulting team and the unparalleled resources of Morgan Stanley Smith Barney.
A hallmark of Graystone Consulting is its commitment to open architecture investment management services and its research process used to evaluate investment management firms. The result is a disciplined, proven process that helps empower investors to make informed investment decisions that can help them meet or exceed their investment objectives. Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, a global leader in wealth management, provides access to a wide range of products and services to individuals, businesses and institutions, including brokerage and investment advisory services, financial and wealth planning, credit and lending, cash management, annuities and insurance, retirement and trust. Morgan Stanley is a leading global financial services firm providing a wide range of investment banking, securities, investment management and wealth management services. The Firm’s employees serve clients worldwide including corporations, governments, institutions and individuals from more than 600 offices in 36 countries. For further information about Morgan Stanley, please visit http://www.morganstanley.com.
Press Contact: Walt Lummus, 608 251 4477
1 Plan Sponsor, December 2008. Plan Sponsor magazine submitted questionnaires to 103 retirement plan consulting firms on July 2, 2008. A total of 80 consultants completed the questionnaire and 64 firms were selected by priority of total retirement plan consulting clients. For more information, go to http://www.plansponsor.com. For the purposes of this survey, “institutional” is defined as any type of retirement plan, including foundations and endowments. The ranking is not indicative of a firm’s future performance. Neither Graystone Consulting nor its financial advisors pay a fee to Plan Sponsor in exchange for this report.
