Justin Hansen, Managing Director of Global Strategic Accounts for MFS Investment Management, joined Julie Cooling, Founder and CEO of RIA Channel, to discuss the perspective of a well tenured investment management firm investing for the long run.
MFS Investment Management is a 101-year-old firm that started the first mutual fund. Hansen notes that it is important for an investment management firm to be well tenured and have managed money through multiple complete business cycles. Hansen believes that advisors and their clients should take a long-term view on investing, and not just the current quarter or the year. Lengthening the time investors are in the market can improve the investing experience. To invest for the long run, investors need to overcome their psychology, which is often worse than the actual market conditions.
Hansen states that advisors can grow by leveraging the intersection of technology and investment expertise, such as scaling their business by models delivered to separately managed accounts (SMAs) through a turnkey asset management platform (TAMP). While MFS invented the mutual fund, today the firm embraces ETFs, SMAs, and collective investment trusts (CITs). While clients with different needs will access investments through the structure that is right for them, what matters is the strategy, such as active management of equities through a growth or value discipline.
Moving forward, the wealth business needs to create capacity. Today, models, asset allocation, and multi-asset products can help clients meet their desired outcomes.
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