Sigurd, one of the early chartered financial analysts, moved from New York to Detroit and started Wendin & Co. A couple of years later, he teamed up with Heber Fuger, a firm that was doing similar work.

“Ted Fuger was a very brilliant bond analyst and John Heber was an outstanding customer man, as they used to call it back in those days,” says Wendin. His father combined both of those aspects, he says, and was elected to lead HFW.

The Federal Reserve used to have someone from HFW come lecture its new class of bank examiners. Starting in the 1950s, HFW spent four decades as advisors to Puerto Rico. The commonwealth’s secretary of the treasury asked the FDIC to recommend a firm that could advise on treasury and bond issues and pensions. “He didn’t want a big money-center player because they still had the reputation of being hooked up with the banana companies,” says Wendin, referring to colonial leftovers.

“My dad took a boat down there, spent about a month going over things and realized we could help them,” he says. “We were there for roughly 40, 45 years after that.”

Barnes also shares family ties with HFW. His father Gordon (who, like Dick Wendin, was a Detroit Bank & Trust Co. alum), joined HFW in 1972 and helped it expand its geographical presence. (It now has clients in 11 states.) He became its sole owner and retired in the late 1990s.  

Building Trust
Becky Gersonde, who joined HFW in 1999 and heads its wealth management arm in addition to working with institutional clients, says the firm offers a personal, hands-on experience for all clients. “There’s a trust factor we promote here,” she says. She thinks clients are attracted to HFW’s low fees (which she estimates rank in the bottom third of the industry), transparency and specialty in fixed income.

Some of the firm’s clients weren’t aware of how much their former money managers’ fees were eating into their returns, she says, at least not until the 2008 financial crisis, when the market improved but their assets didn’t improve quite as much.

HFW’s moderately conservative investment philosophy appeals to the firm’s wealth management clients, many of whom have reached or are near retirement age, say Gersonde and Barnes. (By the way, the firm does not invest in Detroit-issued debt.)

HFW uses Schwab’s institutional investment platform and buys funds with low expense ratios. Another reason it has been able to keep its fees low and staff lean is that its clients, financial professionals, “don’t require a great deal of hand-holding every time the market swoons,” Barnes says. But HFW is open to hiring more people as it grows its wealth management practice, he notes. In 2013, it hired an investment advisor who works closely with Gersonde on this business.

She and Barnes don’t anticipate having a hard time finding qualified candidates. Recent mergers and acquisitions in Detroit have displaced many people with 20 to 30 years of experience in financial services. And younger people are graduating college with experience gleaned from internships with other companies, they say.

The average tenure of HFW’s employees is approximately 14 to 15 years. Barnes speculates that the firm’s collegial environment helps it retain people. “Employees are given a lot of discretion and a long leash,” he says. “They don’t need me looking over their shoulder all the time.” Gersonde also credits the mutual respect among employees, who sit in an open trading area and know each other’s clients.