Cover Story DeWaay Capital Management Giving Investors an Edge
By Ira Lacher

It's 86 degrees under a fierce sun, and Don DeWaay isn't sweating, even though he's dressed impeccably in a dark blue worsted wool suit, silk tie, crisp white shirt and suspenders. There isn't a hair out of place. The same with the three elegantly dressed people accompanying the CEO of DeWaay Capital Management on one of his many exploratory trips to examine his latest project.

This one is a brick-and-mortar enterprise called Commerce Park by DeWaay, being built on nine acres north of University Avenue in the burgeoning western Des Moines suburb of Clive. When the first building of the planned five-structure complex is finished around Thanksgiving of this year, the 43,000 square feet of what DeWaay, a young-looking 46, likes to call The Mayo Clinic of Money will contain about 100 people skilled in investments, tax law and estate planning. All working to assure that DeWaay's 1,000 or so clients have the potential to amass a considerable retirement income.

The new world headquarters will make it easier for DeWaay Capital Management to practice the founder's philosophy of holistic financial advising bringing together all the experts who, by blessing an investment, increase its chances of success. so many missed opportunities happen because there's no coordination among everyone you need to make it work, DeWaay asserts. If your attorney misses a legal loophole, if your tax specialist doesn't see how this can benefit you, if your estate planner doesn't see what's on the horizon for your children, you've missed a good opportunity to save some real money.You miss enough of these opportunities and you invite disaster.

Investment Advisor.com, a web site covering the financial advisement industry, reports that the firm manages more than $500 million in assets and handles from $1 million to $2 million each week. DeWaay's insight has elicited praise from those who have worked with him since the earliest days, when he went independent in 1987. I've never questioned a decision of his, says Connie Horsman, who started with DeWaay as his marketing coordinator 13 years ago and now is the firm's lead relationship manager.

Larry Raudebaugh has been with DeWaay Capital Management only four months, but agrees that his new boss comfort zone enables a client's success. Raudebaugh, who left a career in Atlanta to come to Clive as DeWaay Capital Management's Chief Compliance Officer, said Don DeWaay has a knack of making the complex simple. And if the client will listen, great things can happen. When the firm completes its acquisition of an east coast broker dealer, there will be about 100 people working with Don DeWaay. With him, not for him. Like a winning football coach, DeWaay creates the game plan, and everyone does their best to execute it.

DeWaay scoffs at perfection, but he wasn't sweating during the turn of the millennium, when the tech bubble burst wide open and investors faced the terrible reality that the higher the roller coaster car climbs, the faster, the longer and the more sickeningly it falls. We were not substantially impacted by that, DeWaay says simply. At that time, our attitude was largely ambivalent about the market. During the high-tech era we were looking at real estate. We didn't have more intelligence about what was about to happen we were just simply focusing on the next basic leads.

DeWaay believes in stocks and bonds and other conventional investments but only to a point. That's why he concentrates on alternatives such as real estate, as well as investing in energy companies, plus leasing and loan portfolios, among others. If you have to ask how much money you need to invest in these alternatives, you cant afford Don DeWaay. My clients are single- and double-digit millionaires, he says, matter-of-factly.

DeWaay's clients are no Warren Buffets, but they are executives and business owners whose portfolios have outgrown reactive investments such as equities and bonds. Figuring out which way the market will go on any given day is enough to make even the most seasoned conventional investment counselor sweat.

Except for the long-distance bike trips or hikes he likes to take with his wife, Carla, and three children, Don DeWaay hasn't sweated since he's shoveled sidewalks while growing up in the northwest Iowa town of Rock Rapids. He didn't need the money; his father was a prominent attorney and a board member of Hawkeye Bancorp. It was just that DeWaay liked the sensation of working, of accomplishing something. I did all sorts of jobs, he says,'shoveling walks, street repairs, farm work. I was obsessed with working. My first pay was $15 for an entire day's work. But that $15 felt good. It was exhilarating.

As an undergraduate at the University of Northern Iowa, DeWaay took on a number of what he callssales ventures virtually all of them profitable. This convinced the history major that he could sell things as a career. So he got a job out of school with American Express, selling securities. That job taught me to see what was right in the financial advising business and what was wrong, he says. I realized that we were not providing the best sophisticated opportunities for people especially at the upper end of the spectrum.

There are hundreds of thousands of opportunities to make money. Our biggest challenge, even today,is to convince a potential client that conventional equities and bond investments are not as good as it gets. We try to get them to stop, look around and believe that there's something more out there.

Chris Uglum, Director of Marketing and Business Development at DeWaay, says he has the hardest job in the world and also the easiest. The hardest part is changing investor paradigms. People areso ingrained with the giant brokerage companies of the world that they have no idea that there are so many other opportunities out there.

Once they realize we offer solutions that are not off-the-rack stock, bonds and mutual funds; my job becomes the easiest in the world. The sheer nature of the work analyzing, researching, and then devising the best particular package to suit a particular client is DeWaay's particular turn-on. Before meeting with a prospect, he does most of the suitability due diligence and investment planning himself.

There will be more meetings before taking on the prospect as a client. Then, for the first year, DeWaay holds numerous follow-ups,primarily to make sure the client is comfortable with the investments. As the client becomes more confident that the staff is completely in synch with their leader, those personal meetings trail off, although DeWaay makes himself available for consultations at any time.

I am an obsessive-compulsive when it comes to clients, he readily confesses. The biggest shortcomings I've had took place when I didn't dot the I's and cross the T's myself. While that might sound boastful coming from someone else, DeWaay's clients appreciate that attitude. Most all clients come from referrals; DeWaay does not advertise extensively, although he is a frequent speaker and shares his expertise on The Profit Zone,a weekly radio show syndicated by WHO in Des Moines and heard in many states.

Likewise, the staff have come to appreciate DeWaay's passion.And although you might think that everyone would be soserious, what with so much money involved and the stakesso high, there is a bright, upbeat feeling everyone seems to share. It's no wonder perspective staff members are screened for the attitude that fits in well with the team.

Our group is young brightserious, yes, but with a great sense of humor, Horsman describes. There's a joy at work. We really love what we do. The clients pick up on this. They see Don DeWaay leading a group of talented professionals totally dedicated to making their considerable wealth work hard for them. When you've already sweated to build your wealth, you don't want to see your financial adviser sweat. Don DeWaay doesn't disappoint them.