Your Balancing Act in a Shifting Landscape
Healthcare organizations manage multiple pools of assets—including operating, capital asset and long-term investment pools, together with foundations, pensions and retirement plans. Each one has its own unique purpose, return objective and risk profile that makes the entire investment program more complex.
Add to this complexity continuing changes in regulations, reporting requirements, leadership (including mergers and acquisitions), new technologies and even worldwide health crises like a global pandemic. Striking a balance of risk, return and liquidity has never been more challenging.
Risk, Return and Liquidity
Finance professionals recognize the imperative of strategic asset allocation from an enterprise-wide perspective, and how investment performance in one pool can reverberate to other pools and the broader organization. A holistic view of your enterprise needs can be accomplished with the guidance of an independent investment consultant and co-fiduciary.
Operating Funds
Trying to do more with fewer resources—both human and financial, while managing operating assets in a low interest rate environment demands more innovative ways of achieving your funding goals. Highland’s experience and modeling capabilities can help you explore strategies that can optimize returns relative to your organization’s risk tolerance and funding priorities.
Foundations
Hospital foundations can be an effective fundraising and investment management vehicle. They offer healthcare organizations tools for managing investments and administering planned giving and endowment funds. A growing foundation can generate annual spending dollars to benefit your healthcare system. Highland understands the interrelated facets of managing foundation assets so you can not only do good, but do it better.
Foundations
Foundations take many forms: hospital foundations,community foundations; private and family foundations; educational endowments; and hospital foundations, and other nonprofit foundations. Foundation funds are established with their own unique requirements and objectives.
Highland understands how the multiplicity of objectives, constituencies, beneficiaries, and legalities can complicate investment management. We simplify decision-making with time-tested processes that can help you grow your assets. Stay mission-focused, to do good—better, and for more people.
Here are the interests, constituents, and requirements our process considers:
![[HCA-012] AFlourishingEndowment_TreeDiagram](https://highlandusa.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/HCA-012-AFlourishingEndowment_TreeDiagram.jpg "[HCA-012] AFlourishingEndowment_TreeDiagram")
Retirement Plans
Since 1993, Highland has advocated for retirement plan sponsors. Today, we continue to advocate for our clients’ success by becoming knowledgeable in what matters to them and their plan’s success.
We tailor our service with customization that encompasses not only plan investments, but also thoughtful plan design, compliance monitoring, fee management, and participant communication as well.
Non-Discretionary or OCIO Consulting
Based on your governance structure, resource constraints, and enterprise objectives, Highland will help you identify a consulting arrangement suited to your institution. Whether non-discretionary or discretionary, in any role that you determine, Highland will deliver on our investor advocacy promise as your co-fiduciary.
Highland Research
Highland’s approach to research is grounded in our philosophy and activated through our commitment to independent and analytical evaluation for client-first results.
Highland Research
Highland's Research Philosophy
Highland’s research philosophy is predicated on a single question: Will this help our clients succeed? With that in mind, we work patiently and diligently to source, screen and evaluate investment managers and their strategies.
Our research professionals bring expertise and knowledge gained over decades of experience across a variety of client organizations and asset classes. Our approach ensures we’re aware of and assessing new approaches while staying true to our core tenets.
Independent and Impartial
Highland is 100% independent and employee-owned with no competing affiliations or lines of business. Rest easy knowing the advice you’re receiving is impartial with this goal in mind: achieving your objectives.
A Global View
Our investment process and manager network allow clients access to best-in-class solutions, wherever they may be. Our analysts scour the globe, online and in person, to identify opportunities that promote your success.
Systems and Capabilities
At Highland, we recognize that the best solutions require customization, and systems that support them should be no different. Highland uses industry-leading software and tools, but we don’t stop there. We’ve also developed a suite of in-house, proprietary asset allocation, modeling and risk tools, ensuring our systems and capabilities evolve with our clients’ goals.
Highland’s Judgment
Highland takes a holistic view of risk when examining investment strategies and portfolios. While statistical and computational rigor can be helpful in asset allocation decisions, models don’t fully capture market behavior. That’s why for every investment manager you may work with, we qualitatively evaluate more nuanced scenarios that go beyond quantitative modeling.
As stewards for our clients and their assets, our loyalty is to you first and foremost. While we have access to investment managers across the industry and have developed long-term and constructive working relationships with them, we’re not beholden to any products or strategies. Instead, we’re free to find the best solution for you.
Your On-Staff, Off-Site Resource
Periodic meetings are a given, but relationships are built in the time between. That’s when issues arise and solutions are delivered. Highland’s client-first commitment invites you to lean on us.
Consider us your trusted colleague—on your side and just a phone call or email away.
