James S. Welch

BNYMIA’s investment approach is a team approach where portfolio managers and the research team share information to form a disciplined and consistent strategy that meets the client’s diversification, credit quality, liquidity and average weighted maturity requirements. The firm’s credit research function is fully independent from portfolio management and their dedicated research team employs a deliberately conservative policy, when evaluating individual credits, to help support portfolio credit quality and stability.

Standish Mellon Asset Management Co. is a dedicated fixed income manager that offers a wide range of cash, credit-based and specialty bond strategies. The firm is effectively split into three divisions: the Active Fixed Income Division, the Tax-Sensitive Fixed Income Division and the Stable Value Division. Standish’s Active Fixed Income investment process combines top-down, macroeconomic analysis with bottom-up research to identify attractive securities based on proprietary, fundamental research. Their top-down approach includes macroeconomic research to assess the overall risk environment, and determine broad portfolio themes, industry emphasis, and overall portfolio quality. Standish’s Tax-Sensitive Fixed Income approach has an objective of achieving a high after-tax return on an absolute and risk-adjusted basis versus the benchmark. Their investment process emphasizes the identification of undervalued sectors and securities in the municipal and taxable bond markets. Their focus is to capitalize on yield anomalies among municipal and taxable sectors, identify undervalued securities, and pinpoint relative value between particular bonds. Standish's Stable Value investment process is marked by four key characteristics: a risk-averse style; a disciplined, quantitative approach; a flexible model; and opportunistic management. The objective is preservation of principal and the delivery of stable returns over time.

Acts as Closed-End Investment Fund/Investment Trust

Functions as a College/University

Castleton primarily recommends municipal bonds, and on occasion preferred equities, mutual funds, exchange traded funds, closed end funds, taxable securities, corporate debt securities, commercial paper, and US Government securities.