Watson Wilkins & Brown, LLC, was formerly a registered investment advisor which offered investment advisory & management services for institutions, high net worth individuals & eleemosynary clients. We designed & executed efficient, low cost, beta driven portfolios. We started as a family office to address intergenerational needs for competent, ethical investment management. In that context we developed disciplined investment processes including metrics to define & manage risk; construction of efficient portfolios; and performance measurement and reporting.
Watson Wilkins & Brown, LLC, terminated its investment advisory business effective close of business on Dec. 17, 2018. We found that as the business grew, so did our regulatory burden and key person risk, and no satisfactory strategic resolution eventuated. It was an honor to have served our clients for more than a decade.
WWB or its principals from time to time provide strategic services, advice, transactional assistance, and consulting services to institutional investors, boards of directors, significant shareholders, executive management, and high net worth individuals, including assignments to improve governance of portfolio companies; create & implement strategies to increase shareholder value or preserve enterprise value; explore new business opportunities; or arrange operational joint ventures.
J. Hunter Brown, Founder & Managing Member
Prior to forming Watson Wilkins & Brown, LLC, Mr. Brown had significant experience in global institutional capital markets & corporate finance. He served in various capacities with J.P. Morgan from 1993 to 2001 and prior to that with TD Securities (USA) Inc. and Irving Trust Company. Variously, he had responsibilities in the global securities markets including public & private debt, privately placed equity, and mezzanine securities and investment & corporate banking.
Early in his career Mr. Brown served as a director of a NYSE listed specialty finance company where he formed, chaired and served as onsite representative of a Special Committee which briefly assumed the role of interim chief executive officer and all other executive authorities during a period of unexpected crisis. He resigned from board after losing a contest for corporate control. In 2009, he was elected by proxy contest to the board of a then acutely distressed public company to preserve enterprise value & improve governance. He chaired the Audit Committee and served on the Nominating & Governance committee and on the Compensation & Related Party Transactions Committees. The company went private, and Mr. Brown resigned from the board on Dec. 6, 2013. The successor company is now publicy traded.
Mr. Brown formerly served on the Executive Advisory Board, Department of Finance, Williams School of Business of Xavier University since 2004 and has served as an advisor the Xavier University Student Investment Fund, believed to be the first student managed fixed income fund in the country.
Mr. Brown was the founding President and was for approximately ten years a Director of the Alexander Hamilton Institute for the Study of Western Civilization, a scholarly, not for profit institute of national prominence devoted to the study of markets, democracy and freedom and chartered by the State Education Department of the University of the State of New York.
Peter D. Brown, Chief Portfolio Strategist
Peter Brown was formerly an Institutional Portfolio Manager and Director for Victory Capital Management and a Portfolio Manager for Key Trust Company, both investment affiliates of KeyCorp, one of the nation's largest bank-based financial services companies. He is well known to the institutional investment community of the Pacific Northwest and brings several decades of experience in institutional portfolio management and client relations. He is based in Anchorage, Alaska, and handled, among other responsibilities, the firm’s west coast activities.
Mr. Brown was graduated from Hamilton College and is a longtime resident and member of the Anchorage community. By avocation he is a member of the Civil Air Patrol, an FAA certificated glider instructor, a Trustee and Treasurer of the Soaring Society of America Foundation, and a board member of the Alaskan Aviation Safety Foundation.