NDT / Taxable Institutional
Duff & Phelps provides separate account investment management to a wide variety of institutions that include taxable accounts such as nuclear decommissioning trusts ("NDTs"), VEBA's and Rabbi Trusts. Our investment products are managed based on the objective of controlling exposure to the large variety of risks associated with a given securities market.
For those clients seeking well diversified portfolios, we are able to supplement our internally managed portfolios by drawing from the wide variety of Exchange Traded Funds ("ETFs") that are available in the marketplace.
For our NDT / Taxable Institutional internally managed equity portfolios, we provide two investment alternatives: Tax-Efficient Large Cap and Large Cap Passive. Each are managed as a separate account, utilizing lot accounting. As a result, each taxable client's unique tax circumstances are optimized while simultaneously accommodating the client's specific investment guidelines (e.g. limits and/or exclusions of individual holdings). Our Tax-Efficient Large Cap Equity product is a low turnover strategy consisting of 40 -50 holdings of well-recognized, high quality domestic companies which collectively have a lower P/E, higher yield and higher dollar-weighted market cap than the S&P 500 Index. Our Large Cap Passive Equity product replicates the S&P 100 Index*, which is highly correlated with but has lower turnover than the S&P 500 Index.
For clients utilizing our internally managed fixed income products, our investment process does not begin until we develop a clear understanding of each client’s investment guidelines and applicable benchmark. Portfolio construction is dependent on benchmark selection and can be significantly different if the benchmark is the Lehman Government/Credit Index versus the Lehman Aggregate Index or some other index, including customized benchmarks.
We maintain regular and frequent contact with each of our institutional accounts so that they fully understand the investment strategy that we are deploying and the reasons for any change in this strategy. This contact includes, at a minimum, providing quarterly written reports and yearly personal visits in order to summarize this strategy and to provide commentary on comparative performance versus client selected benchmarks. For our taxable clients, we produce after-tax returns for the portfolio and the respective benchmark. Portfolio turnover is minimized for each of our investment products and active tax loss harvesting is not practiced for our taxable portfolios, largely to minimize transaction costs.
Please direct inquiries to Dave Krause at (312) 630-4508 or Kyle West at (312) 630-4626.
2008 NDT Funding Study
Nuclear Decommissioning Funding Status as of December 31, 2007
NRC Minimum Cost Estimates for Decommissioning a Nuclear Generating Unit
NDT Rules and Regulations Summary as of June 2008
Presentations at 2008 NDT Fund Conference
Expected Return / E(R) : A Key Driver in the Asset Allocation Process
Municipal Bond Insurance: Necessary? Or Necessary Evil?
Credit Crunch: The Blame Game
*"Standard & Poor’s®", "S&P®" and "S&P 100®" are trademarks of the McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. and have been licensed for use by Duff & Phelps Investment Management Co. The Product is not sponsored, endorsed, sold or promoted by Standard & Poor’s and Standard & Poor’s makes no representation regarding the advisability of investing in the Product.