Dana Investment & Their Best “Vaccines” To Cement Growth Momentums Amidst COVID-19

Dana Investment Advisors has successfully risen to be the best performance financial firm during the pandemic. What has made them overcome the crisis and achieve their success?

Founded in 1980, Mike Dana – an experienced investment professional – named the firm after his last name with the purpose of serving corporate financial management. Being through a long path in their history, today, the Wisconsin-based firm has been owned 100% by employees. During the last 3 years, Dana has revealed their worth-learning success by appearing 3 times on the top of the 100 financial firms list. They have been named #2 in 2020, and #3 in 2019 and spectacularly ranked #1 in 2021. To answer for this remarkable achievement, the company reveal 4 essential factors shaping their history.

Factor #1: Being Positive Is a Solution

One of the factors that helped Dana overcome the crisis is their robust philosophy. During the challenging time, instead of pausing the business and waiting, Dana company chose to stand up and found the silver lining in the storm. They continued the business online and settled a responsive plan for their talents remote working.

According to Mark Mirsberger – CEO of Dana Investment Advisors, he claimed that people usually tend to think about bad aspects rather than a brighter future, then it leads to many worse situations.

“You have to show them that the world’s not ending,” Mark said. “Where there is hope, there is growth.”

This philosophy has made an enormous impact on the company – especially the investment industry. Where trust needs to come along with action, Dana has calmed their clients and encouraged them believe in the process rather than giving up. With the professional analyst methods, Dana’s confident in showing their clients about the better up coming. This tremendous spirit has not only impact on the business result but also on the employees’ productivity.

Factor #2: Understanding the Target Clients

Dana’s investors are individuals, the vast majority of whom have a high net worth. They also have institutional clients such as qualified pension and profit-sharing plans, Taft Hartley plans, unions, financial institutions such as banks and credit unions, insurance companies, public sector entities and other charitable organizations. As reported by the target clients’ demands, Dana has been providing many in-needed actions personalized for each case.

But for the general attribution, many successful investments have brought Dana a widespread reputation with strong public advocacy even in the pandemic period. Dana’s philosophy and belief in ESG factors become the major reasons for their client’s trust and credibility in the firm. Dana’s analysis and action approaches in the adjustable rate had greatly assisted the clients in their long-term investment.

Dana’s target clients are individuals who are concerned about their money more than ever, especially amidst the time of social lockdown. Acknowledging that people are confused about financial planning, Dana offered a range of stable options meeting their client’s demands. Not a quick-earning or big-money approach but a steady stream of income is what people should look for and Dana’s suggestions are eminently suitable.

“…Covid vaccines and the environment is making personal financial planning more important than ever,” Mirsberger said, “While the internet has made information readily available, investors are seeking help deciding what’s most important and what they should believe.”

Factor #3: Focusing on the Long-Term Result

Dana business focuses on long-term investment and selects options for their clients based on their ESG factor analyzing methods. Therefore, when the health crisis occurred, the company did not hesitate to carry on their client’s business.

Mirsberger credits much of the firm’s success to its ability to stay focused on stability. They strongly encourage clients to stay in the business for future profit or steady income. Within this philosophy, Dana has started to focus on adjustable rate and floating rate bonds in ensuring the lowest losses for clients.

Dana’s strategy includes both equity and fixed-income investments. This firm differs from many investments management firms that use mutual funds extensively by investing a small percentage of assets in mutual funds. The remainder is in cash or cash equivalents. Thanks to this statement, Dana was not affected seriously by the crisis. In addition, they took advantage of this situation to gain more experience and clients thanks to their efficient advice. Mirsberger believed that understanding of the up-and-down situation may have the business find out the best way to proceed the flow.

Factor #4: Strong Principles Strengthens the Business Operation

For more than 20 years, Dana has believed and implemented the ESG – environment, social and corporate governance – in their business disciplines. Dana was one of the pioneer firms that used ESG factors to advise investments. According to their public report, Dana has 4 primary disciplines:

Principle #1: Believe that ESG factors can contribute to investment performance and assist in researching process.

Principle #2: Believe that global economy is in the transmission progressing which is full of capable of potential and risky period.

Principle #3: Believe in the enthusiastic effort as an essential part of the company goals.

Principle #4: Believe that the company can fulfil the fiduciary duty through the ESG factors.

Mark Mirsberger has shared his statement about ESG in the interview with CNBC, he said “Our ESG strategies have performed as well, if not better than, our non-ESG strategies.”

At first, they doubted the result. But thanks to the specific rules and questions, Dana found the most efficient way to rely on the ESG. Furthermore, Dana has shown their attention to the world’s benefits not just only for their revenue. The way they provide potential options for clients relying on how their options qualify the company’s investment disciplines. The firm has a range of questions that assist their investors in analyzing and making a good decision based on the long-term revenue. Manufactural process littering, proceeding system and more questions about the company environment affection has been held by Dana advisors. Labor strikes, weapons providing, adult entertainments are considered a social factor as well. Corporate governance is one of the essential parts that affect Dana advisors in selecting the most suitable investment. Last but not least, aspects of faith have been included in the ESG process of Dana business as well.

Being asked why choosing ESG as the firm’s core disciplines, Dana stated that ESG factors are likely to be the best way to forecast the market, align values and performance benefits. ESG factors has been deployed by more 20% professional financial advisors with more than 16 trillion dollars of managed assets around the United State.

On the other hand, Dana’s philosophy comes from the time-tested investment approaches. They have introduced to their clients 5 strategies investing methods which are combined with ESG factors: Sustainable investing, SRI investing, Impact investing, Faith-based investing, Mission investing.

The Bottom Lines

Dana Investment Advisors has successfully marked its name in industrial history with outstanding efforts to deliver extraordinary values to both clients and the world. By seamlessly integrating the ESG factors methods into their business practices, Dana has put the effective disciplines into the most suitable research procedure. In addition, the optimistic spirit of Dana has been a notable factor in getting Dana into the top ranking. Their remarkable philosophy and customer understanding have also played critical parts in their success.