By Jerry Love, LBC Communications
ALEXANDRIA – The Louisiana Baptist Foundation Board of Trustees were greeted with overall positive news regarding its investment portfolio and the overall ministry work of the LBF. The last quarterly meeting of 2013 was held Oct. 29 here at the Louisiana Baptist Building.
Lee Morris of Graystone Consulting, investment consultant for the LBF, met with the Trustees during the morning Investment Committee meeting to review the Foundation portfolio and to share suggested changes to the management of the portfolio in light of Graystone’s economic outlook for the coming months.
Morris reviewed the investment policy guidelines and all allocations and managers are in compliance with the LBF Investment Policy.
He also reviewed the market forecast from Morgan Stanley’s Global Investment Committee.
The expectations over the next seven years are for bonds to be flat, large cap domestic equity to be around 4%, international equity at roughly 3.5%, and emerging markets equity at 7%.
The earnings rates for the Foundation (year to date) through Sept. 30, 2013, net of all fees are: Equity Fund – Total Return of 16.91%; Fixed Income – Total Return of -0.64% with Annualized Yield of 2.53%; Short Term Fund – Annualized Yield of .41%; Group Investment Fund (blend of all asset classes) – Total Return of 9.22%.
Management changes suggested by Morris and approved by the Investment Committee included:
n Take $900,000 in profits from Sands Capital and place with Montag & Caldwell. Due to Sands outstanding performance over past year, some of the profits were transferred in order to rebalance the less aggressive large cap growth segment of the portfolio;
n Replace WHV Investment Management (international equity manager) with Harding Loevner International. This move was made to achieve more exposure to Europe and Japan.
n Added Lazard Global Listed Infrastructure Fund which manages a portfolio of companies that own and operate toll roads, airports, cell towers and other infrastructure around the world to provide global exposure with emphasis on income producing businesses.
Later in the morning the operating committee reviewed the current budget with LBF Controller and CPA Barbara Bell. The committee also approved the 2014 operating and capital budgets.
Jerry Love presented a brief report on gift activities citing several donations of stock that benefitted local churches and Louisiana College, along with other gifts to Baptist ministries in progress.
Executive Director Wayne Taylor and Love also reported recent attendance at several association annual meetings and the mission fairs associated with them.
After lunch the respective chairmen of the Operating and Investment Committees presented the full board of trustees with the recommendations passed earlier in the committee meetings. These motions included the changes to the investment managers and the approval of the upcoming budget. All motions presented from committees were approved.
Taylor reported on efforts by himself and Bell to secure new accounting software to keep the Foundation up to date. They are currently in discussions with a company that will continue to support the existing custom software and provide upgrades to meet the future demands of the Foundation’s needs.
The Board also bid farewell to several long tenured members, including current President Cornelius Tilton of New Orleans. Others rotating off after two terms are Travis Morehart of Bossier City; Frank Briethaupt of Shreveport and Anthony Bunting of Pineville.
To learn more about the work and ministry of the Louisiana Baptist Foundation, to see a list of current Trustees or to review investment returns for the LBF managed funds, go to www.LBFinfo.org.
The next LBF trustees meeting will be Feb. 4, 2014.