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Don Calcagni, Mercer Advisors CIO, explains why they chose to partner with Opto Investments
Key Takeaways
- Don Calcagni believes that Opto Investments and Mercer Advisors share a fiduciary-centered philosophy.
- He highlights that Opto's team is collaborative, entrepreneurial, open to new ideas, and helps foster the creation of client-focused solutions through close partnership.
- Calcagni sees value in Opto’s end-to-end technology, which helps simplify storytelling for advisors and scale a private markets program.
Transcript
I'm Don Calcagni, chief investment officer at Mercer Advisors.
So why did we choose to partner with Opto Investments? In my mind, it really comes down to three things. First, philosophy. Opto shares our fiduciary-centered philosophy with respect to not just investing but business in general and how to treat our clients. When we were looking to source a platform to work with, we wanted to work with a platform that is not compensated directly by fund managers. We wanted a platform that was going to work with us to ensure tight alignment in terms of interests between our clients, ourselves, and the different service providers to the funds that we are running. So number one is philosophy.
Number two is partnership. We want to work in close partnership with a subject matter expert where we can collaborate, spitball ideas, and brainstorm to come up with new and innovative ways to take great care of our clients. We have found that in Opto. It's a very collaborative team, very entrepreneurial, and very open to exploring new ideas on how to create better solutions for clients, ensuring those solutions are fully aligned with our fiduciary focus on serving clients at the highest level.
Third, and finally, is the caliber of the people. Everyone at Opto that we have worked with has been exceptionally smart, very experienced, very responsive, and open to exploring new ideas. At Mercer Advisors, we have a philosophy that nobody has a monopoly on good ideas. Engaging with the people at Opto has really challenged us to think in new and different ways regarding how to take wonderful care of our clients. So those are the three things: philosophy, partnership, and people.
Additionally, for advisors, what we have found with the Opto Investments technology is that it is genuinely an end-to-end technology. One of the biggest challenges with advisor adoption in the private market space is that they don't have the tools generally to tell the private markets story. Opto makes that quite easy with their whole proposal engine. In addition to having fund manager due diligence, fact cards, videos, and so on to educate advisors on the offering, what they have that I think is critically important are the tools to help advisors tell that story around how to integrate all of that into a portfolio for our end clients.
In that respect, when you have that type of end-to-end technology, it makes your private markets platform quite scalable. If you can help advisors tell that story, it makes it easier to get that uplift with respect to our private markets program.
Important disclosures
Opto Investment Management, LLC (the “Firm”) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Opto Investments, Inc. and is an SEC-registered investment advisor. Registration with the SEC does not imply a certain level of skill or training. SEC registration does not mean the SEC has approved of the services of the investment adviser. This website is operated and maintained by Opto Investments, Inc. Certain products described herein and institutional relationships may involve investment advisory services provided by the Firm. This website is presented for financial institutions and investment professionals only and is not intended for individual consumers or retail investors, unless specifically noted. Unless otherwise indicated, commentary on this site reflects the personal opinions, viewpoints and analyses of the author and should not be regarded as a description of services provided by the Firm or its affiliates. The opinions expressed here are for general informational purposes only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual on any security or advisory service. It is only intended to provide education about the financial industry. The views reflected in the commentary are subject to change at any time without notice. While all information presented, including from external, linked or independent sources, is believed to be reliable, we make no representation or warranty as to accuracy or completeness. We reserve the right to change any part of these materials without notice and assume no obligation to provide updates. Nothing on this site constitutes investment advice, performance data or a recommendation that any particular security, portfolio of securities, transaction or investment strategy is suitable for any specific person. We disclaim any responsibility for information, services or products found on linked websites. Images and photographs are included for the sole purpose of visually enhancing the website. None of them show current or former clients and should not be construed as an endorsement or testimonial. All investing is subject to risk, including loss of principal. Historical performance is not a guarantee of future performance and clients may experience different results. This information contains certain “forward-looking statements,” which may be identified by the use of such words as “believe,” “expect,” “anticipate,” “should,” “planned,” “estimated,” “potential” and other similar terms. Examples of forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, estimates with respect to financial condition, results of operations, and success or lack of success of the depicted investment strategy. All are subject to various factors, including, but not limited to general and local economic conditions, changing levels of competition within certain industries and markets, changes in interest rates, changes in legislation or regulation, and other economic, competitive, governmental, regulatory and technological factors affecting operations that could cause actual results to differ materially from projected results. See related disclosures at https://www.optoinvest.com/disclaimers.
