Veteran market executive and investment consultant Magee vacates COO chair. David Magee is swapping out of his job as COO of Berkeley, Calif.-based Contango Capital Advisors to become its president. The wealth-management firm, a subsidiary of financial-service holding company Salt Lake City-based Zions Bancorporation, is looking for a new COO.

"As chief operating officer, David has been a major force in creating an organization that could fulfill our vision of marrying sophisticated analysis and state-of- the-art risk management with investment portfolios that meet clients' unique, personal goals," says Contango's CEO George Feiger. "He will now introduce our innovative services to a new group of wealthy individuals and their families."

Goals

Magee joined Contango when it acquired Panoptic Solutions, a firm he founding in 2000. Before that he was head of private banking for UBS in San Francisco. He has also worked at Montgomery Securities (now part of Bank of Americaas a high-net-worth client advisor and Oppenheimer & Co., where he put together hedging, arbitrage and portfolio-management strategies.

Cantango is about three years old. It manages about $1.2 billion, mainly for high-net-worth and other individual investors. Many of its clients are business owners.

Magee says Contango's growth to date "reflects the unique approach we offer to clients across the wealth spectrum."

The "uniqueness" of Contango's approach comes down to assessing clients' requirements based on assessments of their life goals rather than, strictly, their investment objectives. Standard boutique stuff, in other words.

In addition to seeking a new COO, Contango has 12 job vacancies posted on the employment page of its website, including five slots for wealth managers in five Western-U.S. locations. -FWR

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