Cutler alum avoids any risky business
In March 2015, David Grenier left his job as president of Cutler Capital in Worcester to start his own investment research firm with his business partner Paul Bucci. Their company, Balanced Growth Advisors in Worcester, focuses on minimizing the risk investors take in achieving their goals. In September, the duo announced a partnership with New York investment research and consulting firm Hillside Advisors, LLC.
Do geology and investing mix?
I went to Amherst College thinking I was going to be a lawyer in political science, but I had a tremendous teacher in high school who taught geology, so I thought I would take Geology 101 at Amherst. I really liked my first geology professor and had an ambivalent feeling about my first poli-sci professor.
The application here for my company is I just like to do research and have a passion for learning. For me to spend four years studying geology was just a nice thing for me to do, knowing that I could stand on my own two feet, I could think and I could do whatever I wanted to do. That helps with investing.
Why did you leave Cutler?
I was one of the founders of Cutler Capital with Mel Cutler, so for 13 years, I contributed to building that business. Paul was hired into Cutler, and that is how we met. There are three businesses over at Cutler: one is the family office, which is sort of Mel's money – the family money – which is considerable; second is the hedge fund, which was trying to expand; and the third business, which never got the attention but was the one I liked the best, was sitting down with individuals, figuring out their retirement plan.
It was a good time for me to start this business with Paul. Paul and I developed an affinity; we felt about risk the same way. We wanted to serve the clients we wanted to serve, which fell into that retirement bucket.
How do you and Paul feel about risk the same way?
When you sit down with a financial planner, they can figure out based on what you need and what you saved that it looks like you need a 5-percent return on your assets, or you need a 10-percent return on your assets or a 2-percent return to accomplish your goals. A financial planner who can come up with that number can come to us, and Paul and I will go to work to design a portfolio to give you that needed percent return. We try to be efficient in how much risk you take.
There may be some people who get a 4-percent return, but they are taking a lot of risks. We don't want to take a lot of risk. The market can give you 4 percent rather easily, so why risk it.
How has the business been doing for the first 20 months?
Right now in terms of cilents, there are 50 families or relationships. Paul and I want to work with people we want to work with. That is a big part of it for us in our careers right now; we are not out there for the sake of growth. We don't have to be a $1 million business; that is not our mantra. We are looking for relationships, so people who really understand our style.
What will the next five years hold?
We are going to be doing the same thing we are doing with more families and more individuals. We will have to focus on bringing the next layer of youth into the business, so what we create can be sustained.
Why did you partner with Hillside?
We began subscribing to their research because it is focused on convertibles. Every time we talked to them, we realized they think the same way we do about risk.
What are the benefits?
Their firm doesn't have asset manager; and Paul and I, that is all we do. To do that well, we have to do research on all the securities. We came up with this agreement where Paul and I have access to the seven analysts there.
That helped us expand our capacity to do research without adding tremendously to overhead.
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