Mr. Raclin: I am a Principal of both Barrington Research Associates, Inc., a Chicago-based institutional brokerage firm, and of Barrington Asset Mana-gement, Inc., an affiliated investment advisory firm dealing primarily with individuals. I have been in the investment business since 1970, first as an Associate with White, Weld & Company, as a Partner with William Blair & Company, LLC, and as an Executive Vice President and Director of Capital Markets with The Chicago Corporation. I joined Barrington in the early 1990s. I manage one of our portfolios, a special focus account for high net worth individuals with a minimum starting balance of 500,000. We currently hold eight positions using a select group of outside closed-end fund managers specializing in various asset classes to include precious metals, convertible bonds, large, mid-, small cap securities and portfolios devoted to health care and natural resources. I manage the special situations component of the portfolio, which is presently comprised of three individual names in health care, technology and energy services. Our overall investment approach is based upon the belief that as tremendous amounts of money have come into the investment world in the past several years, one of the consequences has been an enormous increase in both the number of products offered and the daunting complexity of many of these vehicles. No individual can be conversant with the incredible variety of choices. As a result, in order to participate in areas beyond our firm's expertise, I have selected a number of managers, using closed-end funds, to access different investment opportunities. Presently, the portfolio (which is a model, as all of my accounts are separately managed) is allocated in equal portions of 10% each. Investments include a gold and silver bullion fund, a convertible bond fund, a large cap value fund, a healthcare fund and an energy fund. I select the outside funds and manage the individual investments for the special fund. Our turnover is relatively small. We emphasize diversification, professional management and current income.
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