WestEnd Advisors, LLC

WestEnd Advisors, LLC is an investment management firm based out of Charlotte, North Carolina. The company was originally established in 2004 by founder Robert Lansing Pharr and currently operates with 17 employees and 5 partners, all of whom have active roles in the firm. WestEnd Advisors conducts its research internally, utilizing a fundamental methodology to make its investment decisions. The company invests in the public equity and fixed income markets within the United States, focusing on the stocks of large cap companies. WestEnd Advisors invests most heavily in the information technology sector, which alone makes up over a third of the firm’s total asset allocations, and also invests in the consumer discretionary and health care sectors, each of which makes up another approximately quarter of its total asset allocations, and other sectors to a lesser degree, in order of decreasing allocations. The company holds its allocations for 13.7 quarters on average, although the firm only holds its top 10 allocations for 1.5 quarters. In the most recent quarter, the firm had a turnover rate of approximately 8.8%. WestEnd Advisors manages just under $2 billion in total assets under management spread across approximately 1,500 accounts, all of which are discretionary accounts except for 9 which make up only $1.5 million of its managed assets. Both of the firm’s total number of accounts and total assets under management have been increasing in recent years with the firm’s total assets under management growing significantly from under $400 million back in 2010 to five times that amount today, although that amount has once been as high as $2.8 billion back in 2013. WestEnd Advisors mainly caters to individuals, which alone makes up over half of the firm’s client base, and also provides services to a variety of other clientele. The company currently offers a variety of strategies including its Global Equity ETF, Global Balanced ETF, U.S. Sector ETF, and Large-Cap Core Equity.