Dunham Services

Handpicked institutional sub-advisers manage our mutual funds.

Dunham offers investors institutionally managed, proprietary mutual funds overseen by who we believe to be world-class institutional sub-advisers. Each sub-adviser operates independently and offers its distinct perspectives on their markets and management of their Dunham Fund. This multiple institutional sub-adviser management structure allows us to provide investors with what we feel is an all-star line-up watching over and managing investors’ money.

Investors may not otherwise have access to these institutional sub-advisers due to high minimums or other qualifying criteria. For many of the institutional sub-advisers, the Dunham Fund is the only public mutual fund that they manage in that particular strategy or style.

The Dunham analyst team chooses an institutional sub-adviser to manage a particular Dunham Fund using a rigorous selection process, which starts with a database of over 8,000 managers, choosing who the team believes to be a best-in-class manager.

Dunham is one of the only asset management firms we are aware of who compensates their sub-advisers based on their ability to outperform their respective benchmark.

Dunham compensates its sub-advisers on their ability to outperform their respective benchmarks Simply put, we believe that managers should be paid based on their performance, not on their attendance.* In practice, we believe this aligns their interests with the interests of investors in our Dunham Funds - so we are always working toward the same goal—the success of our investors.

This is at the heart of the Dunham story, and continues to be an important part of how we approach asset management. In our view, this sets us apart from other firms in the industry, keeps our sub-advisers accountable to strive for the best performance results, and emphasizes a client-centric approach to all we do.

Holding our sub-advisers accountable is key to our core belief that this is how a world-class trust and investment firm should operate. This is more than a catchphrase; it is how we have built Dunham over three-plus decades of serving financial advisors and their clients.

*Some Sub-advisers receive minimum compensation regardless of whether or not an established performance benchmark is met or exceeded.

Dunham’s strategic asset allocation methodology avoids market timing fads.

We design and monitor our Asset Allocation Program (AAP) using a strategic asset allocation methodology. Our Dunham analyst team thoughtfully considers a range of asset classes for inclusion in each model portfolio. We focus on the long-term factors affecting portfolio growth as well as the proper risk balance for an optimized portfolio.

We like to say that our portfolio construction process involves both math and art, allowing our Dunham Investment Committee the freedom to evolve portfolios as the markets dictate. The Dunham Investment Committee uses tools such as Black-Litterman and other analytical models as part of our design process to ensure forecasted returns are meaningful and are considered within the context of recent trends. This disciplined and strategic technique helps avoid the pitfalls associated with tactical or market timing fads.

The Dunham analyst team is responsible for the design and monitoring of the Dunham Asset Allocation Program strategies. Employing a strategic asset allocation methodology, allocations generally maintain a long-term focus, designed to potentially diversify a client’s portfolio and help it to outperform broad market indices over the long run.

They select traditional asset classes, like equities and bonds, in various investment styles, market capitalizations, and geographic regions. The analyst team also selects alternative investments, which they believe will lower the overall risk of the portfolio while potentially increasing return. These asset classes represent a broad array of securities that may behave differently from one another in various market environments.

The Dunham asset allocation methodology utilizes low correlated investments to potentially reduce risk.

To better manage risk, the Dunham Asset Allocation Portfolio may include a collection of strategies that have traditionally performed with lower volatility as well as low correlations to the stock and bond markets. These strategies have the potential to offer added diversification benefits to your portfolio because they tend not to move in step with the stock market.

Dunham seeks to maintain the strategic exposure consistent with an investor’s long-term objectives through modest, timely adjustments of these alternative and non-traditional investments to possibly improve their risk-reward outcome over time.

Financial Advisor’s compensation is tied to their client’s investment performance.

Dunham offers Financial Advisors and their clients a different way to structure advisory fees* - a program where the investor pays an advisory fee only when the account makes money.

We believe the Performance-Based Fee option creates fairness in the way a financial advisor is compensated. In this arrangement between the financial advisor and their client, the client only pays the advisory fee when their account has a positive return. That means that an advisor charges a fee only when the account makes money. It is another way that Dunham focuses on our core belief of accountability and fairness when it comes to investments.

*SEC requires that this is available only to those that are deemed as “qualified investors”, a term determined by the SEC as investors with a net worth of $2.2 million or more, exclusive of their home or if they have $1.1 million or more of advisory assets with the financial advisor. This program is not available at all broker/dealers and RIAs.

Dunham Trust Company works with financial advisors, not in competition.

Dunham Trust Company opened in 1999 with the core belief that cultivating highly personal service would make a positive difference in providing exceptional trust administration for financial advisors and their clients. Dunham Trust Company was established in the state of Nevada by design taking advantage of Nevada’s numerous trust benefits which include superior asset protection, no corporate or state income tax, and outstanding privacy laws, just to name a few.

Dunham Trust Company works in conjunction with financial advisors as their virtual in-house trust department. As such, they are an ally in the trust business, not your competition. Our trust program stands out in the trust industry as a better option for an advisor to assist their clients in the implementation and administration of a trust according to Wealth Advisor*

* Wealth Advisor (2018). America’s Most Advisor-Friendly Trust Companies

Dunham prides itself on personal client service.

With Dunham, you have access to a real human being on the other end of the phone, not a machine, twelve hours a day. In addition, this is not just limited to a receptionist. When you call from 9:00 in the morning to 9:00 at night Eastern Time, every Dunham Department is staffed and ready to answer your questions or take care of your needs.

Dunham team members are here for anything you may need help with, whether ordinary or extraordinary. Since from time to time, many of us have unique needs; we pride ourselves on being attentive, finding creative solutions, and keeping our word. At Dunham, we are a firm that is easy to work with.

Personalized customer care is a Dunham priority. This is why we offer investment analysis.* Dunham will take the time necessary to analyze a prospective client’s current investment holdings and make observations and suggestions as to what their analysis uncovers for that specific account.

*The investment Analysis is offered for prospective client accounts of $500,000 or more.

Dunham provides its clients with a personalized insight into the past quarter, and how it affected their account.

Dunham produces quarterly video statements for clients, which provide a high-level breakdown of the economy and markets for the previous quarter. Dunham customizes these video statements for each client, depicting the changes in clients’ account values over the given time period. The client can access their video statements by logging in to their Dunham App or the online Dunham Portal.

Dunham produces a quarterly video called Behind the Scenes designed to give you insights about the economy, the Dunham Asset Allocation Program, and the changes made to the asset allocation program.

Tailored to deliver current market insights and portfolio updates for insightful client reviews.

Dunham helps Series 6 and Series 7 financial advisors broaden their investment offerings.

The Dunham C-Share Standard Asset Allocation Program is an investment solution specifically designed for the Series 6 and Series 7 financial advisor interested in broadening the asset allocation program options they are able to offer to their clients.

This Dunham Program offers minimums of $5,000 for qualified accounts and $10,000 for non-qualified accounts. With no program fee, your client saves money compared to other programs that charge a program fee, and 100% of the C-Share compensation is paid to an advisor’s grid on a monthly basis. The program features six strategies to choose from, which include the use of alternative investments potentially to help manage risk and enhance portfolio returns, in addition to automatic rebalancing of accounts on a quarterly basis.

Dunham provides marketing materials the financial advisor can brand as their own.

At Dunham, we want to help you grow and simplify your practice, so you can remain focused on providing peerless service to your clients. To that end, we offer a number of customizable marketing pieces for advisors to use with clients and potential clients.

For example, we have 13 complimentary, customizable Bull & Bear White Papers, which are FINRA reviewed and targeted to help financial advisors potentially grow your practice during the next bear market. These white papers are easy-to-use PDFs that can be customized with an advisor’s logo and contact information.

We offer a host of other customizable materials as well. If you are interested in what other materials we have that can help you with referrals, hosting events and staying in front of clients, please contact us today.