F.L.Putnam CEO talks about the need for a Portland office
Photo / Jim Neuger
Tom Manning is president and CEO of F.L.Putnam Investment Management Co., which serves clients in Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island. It just moved into new space for its Portland office.
Tom Manning is president and CEO of F.L.Putnam Investment Management Co., which serves clients in Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island and has more than $2.2 billion in assets under management.
Manning sat down with Mainebiz at the firm’s new Portland waterfront office for an interview excerpted below.
Mainebiz: How is the Maine market and client base different from your other offices?
Tom Manning: It’s the same from the perspective that most of our clients like working with advisors that are local to the markets that they live in. They don’t like to have someone calling them from downtown Boston, or driving up here from Boston. They like to know that their advisors are right here, and that they have access to them when they need them.
MB: Have you run into any challenges recruiting employees in Maine?
TM: When I first joined, we would occasionally have to engage a recruiter to help us find talent, but this city is attracting a lot of young people to the marketplace. While maybe the pool of talent in this local market is still potentially small, we’re able to draw people from all over because of the attractiveness of this city and what’s been going on here the last five or 10 years.
MB: What are the hardest positions to fill?
TM: It is those positions where you’re looking for ‘X’ years of experience, and working with a certain type of clientele. We’re not interested in trying to steal talent from other organizations, so our plan is to grow that talent internally and create clear paths for individuals that come into the organization that want to build their careers here.
I want to give people an opportunity to prove what they can do at some pretty young ages.
MB: You’ve been in the business a long time — What drew you to this field?
TM: I took an economics course in high school that included a section on understanding the stock market with some competitions. I majored in economics in college and when I graduated, I was lucky enough to find a job in the investment business right out of school. I had some great opportunities in companies that I worked with, where people put faith in me probably at ages where normally I wouldn’t have been considered someone who would have been appropriate for the level of responsibilities that I had. That’s a lesson I have kept with me forever. At F.L.Putnam, I want to give people an opportunity to prove what they can do at some pretty young ages.
MB: Any more acquisitions in sight after your recent deal for Wolfeboro, N.H.-based Financial Focus?
TM: We’re open to it, but we are not engaged with an investment banker to look for those types of opportunities. With Financial Focus, it was such a great strategic fit for us. We do think this model of serving clients in the local markets is one that we continue to employ. If you think about our current geography, it would be great for me to get in the car and drive to our local offices. It takes me 90 minutes to drive [from Lynnfield, Mass.] to Portland, and it’s such an easy drive. I can just sit back and listen to podcasts on the way up.
MB: What do you listen to?
TM: Freakonomics Radio is probably the one I listen to the most. I also listen to a lot of history, and you can get through a couple of great lectures on a 90-minute drive.
MB: What’s your stock market outlook and how long the run will last?
TM: How much more room the market can grow this year is a big question, but the economic background is actually pretty good for stocks. Inflation is low, GDP growth is solid and earnings of the companies that we follow are pretty decent. From a stock market investor’s perspective, things are pretty solid, and interest rates are low, so competition from other asset classes is really not there. We think it’s an OK time to be invested in the stock market, but the rally has been going on for a very extended period of time. When that occurs, excesses tend to form and we have to be wary.
Tom Manning is president and CEO of F.L.Putnam Investment Management Co., which serves clients in Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island and has more than $2.2 billion in assets under management.
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