Dale Reed

Managing Director, JPMorgan Private Bank, Los Angeles



Age:

41


Education:

B.S, accounting and finance, University of Nebraska


Team Assets:

$16.3 billion

Typical Account: $50 million


Specialty:

Entrepreneurial, high net worth clients in the medical, gaming, entertainment and

manufacturing fields


Years in Business:

17


Quote:

“We’ve made a great call to diversify with hedge funds and have done very well. Those same shifts can be made in an individual’s portfolio.”

It is all about teamwork for wealth adviser Dale Reed.

Reed credits much of his success to the framework that his company, JPMorgan Private Bank, provides. In terms of assets, it’s the largest private bank in the country.

“We have a deep, broad range of services that differs from other institutions,” he said. “I bring forth those capabilities to clients in a very integrated way.”

Reed directs a team that includes an investment specialist and a client services specialist, among others. Some of the best investment calls, he said, have come from stressing the need for “tactical shifts” in portfolios often quite slight.

For example, Reed has advised some clients to cut back on some international investments and refocus on the United States when that leads to a more balanced portfolio.

“It is 2 to 5 percent of shifting between various asset classes to where we think they will be outperformers,” Reed said.

The bank’s chief investment officer, New York City-based Michael Cembalest, dictates the firm’s broad investment strategy and market outlook just another aspect of the operation that Reed finds appealing.

“It is a strategy set forth by our team,” he said.

Reed said that he has also been successful by advising clients to invest in hedge funds, which often make risky moves, such as selling short, to make large profits though in theory any such move should be hedged by a long position.

“We’ve made a great call to diversify with hedge funds and have done very well,” he said.

Though Reed specializes in high net worth individuals, he said the advice given to those clients can also be useful for middle-of-the-road investors. “Those same shifts can be made in an individual’s portfolio,” he said.

Reed’s experience several years ago managing one entrepreneur’s investments and assets convinced the 41-year-old Nebraska native that he was meant to be a wealth adviser.

A year after graduating from the University of Nebraska in 1989, Reed moved to Los Angeles and worked as an accountant at various firms for several years. In 1998, he left KPMG where he was an investment specialist for a career-defining three-year stint as a CFO of sorts for a high net worth Angeleno.

“I was exposed to an entrepreneur with a vast amount of assets and complexities that are similar to the client base we have here,” Reed said. “I felt I could bring that experience to other similarly situated clientele, having been on the other side of the table.”

Reed decided to make the move to JPMorgan Private Bank because he had worked with the company while managing the entrepreneur’s assets and came to respect its platform.

“I really believe in the institution,” he said.