Manager taps former Fidelity salesman Perl for private-client push into NYC. Asset manager Calamos has hired Stephen Perl, formerly with Fidelity's Family Office Services group, to spearhead business-development efforts for its Wealth Management unit in the metropolitan New York area.

"New York City is a very important market," says Bob Long head of business development for Calamos Wealth Management. "Having Stephen on the ground there, with his background and experience, is key to us."

In fact the appointment is part of a campaign to bolster Calamos' private-client business and to distinguish it from its far larger institutional and mutual-fund business lines.

Convertibles

Calamos has provided investment-management services to wealthy individuals from its inception in 1977. Over time it has expanded its roster of private-client services to include, among other things, financial, tax, estate and succession planning. This year it established Calamos Wealth Management as a distinct subsidiary of Calamos Holdings.

Perl, who left Fidelity in May 2008, had been a business developer with the fund company's FOS group -- which provides investment products and client services to ultra-high-net-worth families -- for about two years. Before that, he was a salesman with Fidelity's Institutional Wealth Services, the firm's RIA custody division.

As a director of Calamos Wealth Management, Perl will work to bring in private and institutional clients and play an on-going role in client service supported by a wealth-management crew of 20 and an investment team of 60. By and large, his institutional focus is on open-architecture boutiques.

Calamos specializes in growth equity and convertibles -- preferred shares and corporate bonds that can be exchanged for commons shares at pre-determined prices.

The Naperville, Ill.-based firm's wealth-management clients fall into two broad categories. Ultra-high-net-worth clients generally use its money-management services as one of a number of providers and may or may not avail themselves of other wealth-management services. Clients with investable assets in the $2-million-to-$20-million range use it as their sole manager and planning-service provider.

"A lot of our competitors put wealth planning first and investments second," says Long. "We do the opposite: we're a completely proprietary, closed-architecture firm."

Calamos' wealth-management unit accounts for about $1 billion of its $40 billion in total assets under management. -FWR

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