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Our Mission

To deliver precision investingTM advice for individuals and families, tailored to their specific requirements.

Our History

Three core values have inspired the creation of Lloyd Tevis Investments, LLC:

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This combination of values has taken shape from three formative life experiences of the firm's founder Dr Nicolo G. Torre:

The first formative experience was that of family and friends asking me for assistance with investments. Typically, they felt that the financial industry was, at best, only giving them superficial solutions to important life problems and often was failing to get to grips with their issues entirely. Working with them to find solutions to their concerns taught me that what they really needed were not just a few good ideas or some clever analyses, but rather a firm that would take responsibility for their situations and work with them year in and year out to achieve their life objectives.

The US Treasury provided the second experience. In 1997, the US Treasury decided to issue bonds whose payments were linked to the Consumer Price Index-so called TIPS. The investment bank Credit Suisse First Boston put together a road show to introduce the new type of bond to the investment community. I was invited along to provide an expert assessment of the investment characteristics of the new instrument. Subsequent to the road show, the firm of Brown Brothers Harriman retained me to deepen the analysis of the new asset class. Primarily, Brown Brothers was focused on the investment problems of their core clients: Central banks, Pension and Endowment funds. However, they also wanted to understand the usefulness of TIPS as an investment for the typical private individual. This led me to analyze the individual investor in depth using high-powered investment tools that, at that time, were rarely -- if ever -- applied to the investment issues of individuals. This experience showed me that such tools had much to offer the individual investor.

The third experience resulted from a bit of flawed genius on the part of Sanford Weill the then head of Citicorp. Traditionally law and custom had divided banking, investments and insurance into separate industries. However, Weill noted that all three industries served the same client base. He conceived of a firm that would provide the full range of consumer financial services under one roof - the "financial supermarket." The resultant consolidation of distribution would generate both substantial cost savings for the consumer and earnings growth for Citicorp. Realizing this vision required a financial model that could, for the first time, analyze the clients' financial lives on a truly holistic basis. The job of creating this model landed on my desk. Building on the earlier work for Brown Brothers , I created the extensive model and saw it through the onerous implementation process inside a major bank. The software was ultimately deployed in its first edition and found good acceptance from the first customers exposed to it.

During the financial crisis of 2008/2009, however, Citicorp had to abandon Weill's ambition of becoming a financial supermarket, and orphaned this cutting-edge retail investment model.

Reflecting on this experience, led me to my third insight. Weill was right that there were important benefits to a holistic approach to the financial lives of consumers. However, his chosen vehicle -- the financial behemoth faced serious management and regulatory challenges. The solution was to flip the model around. Instead of applying it as a corporate sales tool, the model could be put in the hands of the consumer to help them hunt for the services they required.

Especially today, empowering the consumer is always the more attractive strategy, and better in line with technology and regulatory trends.

Combining these three insights then led to the birth of Lloyd Tevis -- a firm focused on empowering investors to direct their financial lives with access to the best investment thinking and assistance from Lloyd Tevis.

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Our team

Nicholas G. Torre, Ph.D. CFA

Nicholas G. Torre, Ph.D. CFA
Founder & CEO

Nicolo G. Torre earned a BA from Harvard College in 1983 and a PhD from the University of California at Berkeley in 1989.

In 1990 he joined the firm of Barra (now MSCI-Barra) in the research department. Barra is the leading provider of quantitative models to the global institutional investment community. Here Torre made substantive contributions in risk and liquidity management. In 1999, he was appointed Managing Director, of Research, the senior investment position at the firm. As Managing Director, he focused on management of multi-asset class risk. The models developed by Torre and his staff are essential to managing more than half of global investment capital.

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Bill Poulin

Bill Poulin
Head of Marketing & Strategy

Bill Poulin is a Senior Advisor to Lloyd Tevis Investment Management. Prior to Lloyd Tevis, Mr. Poulin was Head of Product Strategy and Marketing for the alternative ETF provider, ProShares. Previously, Mr. Poulin was Senior Managing Director, Head of Product Strategy and Marketing for Bank of America's Columbia Management division. At BofA / Columbia, he oversaw the development and day-to-day management of hundreds of retail and institutional investment funds, separate accounts, insurance and bank trust products representing over $650BN of invested assets. Prior to Columbia Management, he was Head of Product Strategy, Development and Marketing for Fidelity Institutional Investments, and John Hancock Investments where he also led corporate development and acquisition strategy. As Director of M&A Execution for Putnam Lovell, Mr. Poulin led buy-side and sell-side execution for many of the asset management industry's most notable acquisitions.

Our Namesake

SECURING YOUR FUTURE THROUGH PRECISION InvestingTM

Lloyd Tevis

Lloyd Tevis was a successful investor of the California gold rush era. He came to California from Kentucky with little other than a law degree and some business experience. Through a combination of hard work and successful investments, he acquired an initial capital whose power he enhanced by forming successful business coalitions. Initially he was active in transportation – organizing the Southern Pacific Railroad and acquiring a controlling interest in Wells Fargo and Co. - at that point mainly a stage coach line. His association with the Pony express is still remembered in the Tevis Cup which is the premier endurance riding trophy. However, Tevis shifted his focus to banking by greatly expanding the banking activity of Wells Fargo and Co. after acquiring control in 1869. He was so successful in this activity that the bank became overcapitalized for its market. There were not enough credit worthy borrowers to absorb the bank's massive capital. Tevis's solution was to shift its business focus to industrial development banking from commercial banking. The minority interests, however, protested. The disagreement was resolved by Tevis exchanging his interest in the bank for the bank's industrial investments. In this way, he - together with his partners Ben Ali Haggin and George Hearst - became the owners of Anaconda Copper, Ontario Silver, Homestake Mining and the Kern County Land Company. These companies held the largest deposits of copper, silver, gold and petroleum on the North American continent. Tevis went on the organize a predecessor of the Chevron corporation but died in 1899 before this investment fully developed. Wells Fargo and Co. continued as an overcapitalized commercial bank until it was acquired by Edward Harriman in 1905. Harriman drained the bank of its excess liquidity and used that capital to rebuild the Union Pacific Railroad. In an interesting twist of fate, the Union Pacific would go on to acquire the Southern Pacific Railroad in 1996.

Tevis's success has been attributed to two factors, the ability to think five times faster than anyone else in San Francisco and an ability to cross the social divides of his day. In the 1860s-1890s, California society was split into three factions: the Yankees, the Southerners and the Mexicans. In general, each community was divided from the other two by the bitter feelings engendered by the Mexican and Civil wars. Uniquely, Tevis was able to cross these divides and form business coalitions drawing on all parts of the community. We thought these qualities of fast thinking and openness to all peoples were the key aspects of our Precision Investing TM approach. Accordingly, we thought is appropriate to name our company after Lloyd Tevis.

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