Edgar Lomax Co., Springfield, Va., has grown to $482 million in assets under management from just $182 million at the beginning of 1996.
Much of its growth can be traced to its ties to the Baltimore Retirement System, which gave Lomax $5 million to invest in 1992, and now has $120 million with the firm.
Since Lomax was hired, it has been the city's best performing manager, said Harry Deitchman, chairman of the Baltimore's city funds. Lomax is ahead of Baltimore's next best performing manager by about 300 basis points, Mr. Deitchman said.
He said the Baltimore funds took the unusual step of hiring a manager that didn't have any institutional clients at the time. Six months after the hiring, when performance was strong, consultant Evaluation Associates Inc., Norwalk, Conn., recommended the allocation be upped to $25 million; instead Baltimore increased it to $15 million, Mr. Deitchman said.
But the allocation to Lomax has slowly grown over time, and could go higher, he said.
Lomax uses a classic value approach, investing in only Standard & Poor's 500 Index companies, according to Randall Eley, founder and president of Lomax, which is named after Mr. Eley's grandfather.
