Who's first for Catholics?
Please be advised that there may be an error in your Nov. 26 article on page 39 regarding Carlisle Social Investments. The author, Mike Kennedy, quotes Jeff Petersen, who claims that his "company, formed in November 2000, is the first socially responsible manager of separately managed accounts to use the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' guidelines on acceptable investments." We do not believe this is an accurate statement.
Leylegian Investment Management Inc. was established in 1981, and for more 20 years has provided investment advisory services to separately managed religious and charitable portfolios. We have been consistently ranked within the top 10 for our expertise in religious and social responsibility investments, and have incorporated and applied the guidelines of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to the appropriate Roman Catholic portfolios under our management. Likewise, we continue to incorporate the various guidelines established by governing conferences for each denomination whose assets we manage.
We wish Mr. Petersen and his colleagues all the best. However, we do not believe that they were the first to have implemented these guidelines for separately managed portfolios.
George A. Leylegian
president and chief executive officer
Leylegian Investment
Management Inc.
South San Francisco, Calif.
Prudential real estate
The Oct. 15 edition of Pension & Investments ran a special report on real estate, which included an outline of the largest real estate investment advisers. Prudential Real Estate Investors was ranked 10th in the survey, with total real estate assets under management of $12.2 billion.
While we are pleased to once again rank within the Top 10 based on equity real estate alone, the ranking would be considerably different if debt assets under management also were considered. The combined equity and debt assets under management for taxable and tax-exempt assets would total $31.8 billion, putting Prudential third in ranking. We would appreciate your publishing this clarification as we believe it more consistently reflects the position of Prudential among the advisers included in your survey.
We are pleased to be able to provide clients with both real estate equity and debt products. Thank you for allowing us to update our information.
Bernard Winograd
CEO
Prudential Real Estate Investors
Parsippany, N.J.
Hyena, lion sales zoology
I read with some interest Beatrix Payne's Aug. 20 Frontlines snippet, "Time to hunt with the pack," alluding to the notion that fund marketing was undergoing a change from being dominated by lone, relationship stewards (lions) to a style more dependent on cooperative sales focused on service and performance provided by a group, or pack (hyenas).
While the metaphors might be apt, I thought it worthwhile pointing out a slight inaccuracy in the idea that the fund marketing landscape has now thusly become a "dog-eat-cat" world. While hyenas do resemble dogs they are, in fact, not related to dogs and belong to a unique species that, genetically, more closely resembles cats, big or otherwise. Their closest relative is the mongoose, then felines, and I suppose, too, lions. This makes the changes discussed by Ms. Payne more evolutionary, as opposed to a seemingly watershed moment wherein one style of salesmanship simply replaces another.
While on the subject of hyenas it might be worth noting that one of the most intriguing characteristics of this unique creature is the visual confusion between genders. It seems the distinctive features of a male hyena, from a modest distance, are not discernable from those of the opposite sex (and not due to a lack of presence - just the opposite!). Perhaps this is also a change worth noting about the once male-dominated fund marketing world to one where gender, or the appearance of such, is no longer much of an issue.
Dick Ryan
Chicago
