Innealta Capital, Jeff Montgomery's firm in Austin, TX, has been growing its sales force along with the launch of its new tactical fixed-income fund, which came out on April 1 and is being managed by CIO Gerald Buetow. Innealta, which handles three other strategies in mutual fund form, is pitching the fund to warehouse brokers, independent advisors and family offices and has been adding sales professionals around the country and plans to continue to do so, said Scott Silverman, the firm's director of business development.

Last year, Dan Driscoll came on board as a v.p. in sales for the Northeast, based out of Boston, and Tadas Misiunas joined as a regional sales director for the Southeast, based in Chicago. Dion Travagliante also joined in Austin in an internal sales role, as a senior consultant and Silverman plans to add two more internal sales people in Austin this quarter. Driscoll came over from Congress Asset Management in Boston, Misiunas was previously at U.S. Global Investors and Travagliante joined from FactSet Research Systems, a financial software firm.

The sales push seems to be paying off so far as the new fund will soon be put on LPL Financial's platform and is due to receive a commitment from a wirehouse broker, which Silverman couldn't yet name. The firm also has Northern Lights as a distribution partner, that represents two of its other funds: the Innealta Capital Risk Based Opportunity Moderate Fund and the Innealta Capital Sector Rotation Fund. The firm also manages the Innealta Capital Country Rotation Fund. Innealta, which was acquired by AFAM Capital in 2009, has $4 billion in mutual fund and separately managed account assets.

The new Innealta Capital Tactical Fixed Income Fund is a global tactical unconstrained strategy that can go anywhere in the fixed-income market based on opportunities. It invests through ETF's, so it's a little different from the existing unconstrained bond funds managed by giant firms like PIMCO, Goldman Sachs or J.P. Morgan. Silverman explained. The execution on Innealta's fund is cheaper, as it invests through ETFs and not directly via fixed-income securities. This strategy has already been up and running as a separately managed account since 2010 and returned 5.28 percent since inception through the end of last year.

The firm doesn't have any further product development plans at this point and Silverman thinks four unconstrained strategies is already a lot for a small firm. "One of my pet peeves is that people treat their prospects better than they treat their clients," he said, explaining that he wouldn't want the firm's investment professionals to dilute their efforts on existing products while trying to develop too many new ones.  

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