Consider the story of this Chicago RIA, as chronicled by RIABiz.

Chicago Partners was founded in 2002 by Jim Hagedorn to serve as an RIA within the Chicago office of PricewaterhouseCoopers.

RIABiz reports that the advisor has grown from $350 million to a billion in assets in seven years, as well as tripled its high-net-worth client base.

How did it do that? By offering a combination of Dimension Fund Advisors mutual funds as well as alternative strategies investing in such assets as master limited partnerships (MLPs), real estate investment trusts (REITs) as well as other hedge-fund-like strategies.

According to the RIAbiz article, Hagedorn is a believer in DFA products, but he also sees a need for including more active strategies.

This is what he had to say on the subject in the RIABiz article:

We think DFA is the best equity investment manager in the world. I think their results speak for themselves. We will go active where DFA doesn’t have a fund or strategy in that area,…For example, the MLP portfolios we manage for clients are an ideal complement to the DFA equity funds. Most importantly, the client gets the benefit of the synergistic value from having exposure to both strategies.

According to the RIABiz, Chicago Partners has its assets custodied by Schwab Advisor Services, TD Ameritrade, Fidelity Institutional Wealth Management, Scottrade and Interactive Brokers.

Now, the RIA is going into the fund business. In September, the shop plans to launch an alternative mutual fund helmed by John Nicholas, who was recently hired away from Guggenheim Partners. The RIA couldn't say more on the fund citing SEC-quiet period rules

However, you can learn more about the fund, dubbed the Big 4 Onefund from this SEC filing. 

Edited by: Tommy Fernandez


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