Willis Investment Counsel, Inc., or “WIC,” is an independent investment advisory firm. By
“independent,” we mean we have no formal or legal relationship with brokerage firms, mutual
fund companies, banks, or other financial institutions. The owners of WIC are Robert T. Willis, Jr.,
James J. Kilroy, Kelli M. Wright, Brett M. Slattery, Natalie R. Challen, John M. Lewis, and Tracey A.
Patton. These are all of the WIC shareholders. WIC has operated continuously since its founding
in 1979.
WIC provides advisory services to clients for their investment securities portfolios, typically
including stocks, bonds, stock options, mutual funds, and cash and cash equivalents (for example,
money market funds). Our clients include individuals and institutions such as corporations,
pension funds, 401k plans, foundations, endowments, captive insurance companies, and private
investment funds.
WIC also acts as an investment advisor to four private funds (the WIC Value Fund, L.P., the Small
Cap Value Fund, L.P., the Managed Volatility and Income Fund, L.P., and the Managed Volatility
and Income Fund QP, L.P.).
The scope of our advisory services, which may vary among clients with different investment goals,
objectives, and requirements, includes:
• Working collaboratively with investment consultants, family offices, investment
committees, chief investment officers, and financial advisors that utilize WIC’s
strategies;
• Assisting clients in developing their specific investment goals, objectives, and
needs, including understanding their tolerance for possible investment losses and
market volatility;
• Working with clients to develop investment policy guidelines describing the types
of investments they wish to invest in. This includes such things as:
o Providing recommendations on the types of investment securities that are
appropriate for clients, developing a strategy for how those
strategies/securities might be apportioned, and
o Determining appropriate investment performance benchmarks against
which the performance of investment portfolios can be measured.
• Designing investment portfolios consistent with established investment policies;
• Creating investment portfolios through the selection and purchase of appropriate
securities;
• Managing investment portfolios by executing the purchase and sale of securities,
continuously assessing portfolio performance, and adjusting portfolios to ensure
that they are consistent with investment policies;
• Issuing to clients quarterly (and in some cases, monthly) reports, which include
investment performance information;
• Meeting and consulting with clients and their advisors about their investment
portfolios and estate planning as often and when they wish to do so.
We tailor our advisory services to our clients' individual investment goals, objectives, and needs,
considering their investment return expectations, income requirements, market volatility and
tolerance for possible investment losses, liquidity needs, and the period in which they intend to
invest.
In addition to the above discretionary investment management services, WIC provides Family
Office Services and chief financial officer-type services for mutually agreed designated non-
discretionary assets outside of our discretionary portfolio management. Family Office Services
could include:
• consolidated reporting of discretionary and non-discretionary
assets
• monitoring and advising on non-discretionary assets
• reviewing outside investment opportunities
• coordination with outside service providers, including attorneys, accountants, and other
advisers; assistance with trust, tax, and estate planning and administration; philanthropy
planning; management succession and monetization planning
• next-generation support and education
• ongoing family meetings and communication on matters of wealth management, estate
planning, significant life, and liquidity events
These services are based on the client providing personal data such as family records, employment
records, budgeting, assets, liabilities, estate information, and tax information.
As part of WIC’s Family Office Services, the client onboarding process often begins with building a
Balance Sheet, which lists all of a client's assets and liabilities. This analysis allows us to gauge
overall liquidity, areas of concentration, cash flow sources, estate planning needs, and other
pertinent financial issues. We use this Balance Sheet to build an annual cash flow forecast schedule
for the client (when applicable) and any associated tax planning schedule.
After the client Balance Sheet is established and memorialized, we work collaboratively with the
client to build a financial “Roadmap” that captures a range of potential financial paths spanning
the client’s remaining life. The scenarios are generally dictated based on the client’s life goals and
include variables such as planned retirement age, spending needs during retirement, generational
and philanthropic plans, annual inflation, tax policy, and other relevant factors. Importantly, this
Roadmap also provides a general understanding of the risk and return dynamics needed for a
particular client.
We establish an Investment Policy Statement pursuant to the Balance Sheet and Roadmap
processes. This Investment Policy Statement stipulates which strategies will be employed to
achieve the long-term goals established in the Roadmap exercise, subject to acceptable risk
characteristics. Investment Policy Statements are generally changed pursuant to a change in the
client’s situation or investment landscape risk and return dynamics.
A central part of our advisory services involves managing securities portfolios for our clients. The
total amount of client securities or “assets” under management is divided into discretionary and
non-discretionary accounts. Discretionary accounts are the client accounts for which we generally
have responsibility for investment decisions, including purchase and sale decisions, on behalf of
our clients. Typically, this includes the discretion to make purchase and sale decisions without the
client’s approval. Discretionary accounts also include those clients for which we have the authority
to decide which mutual funds to invest or which investment advisors to retain on behalf of the
client; this includes our 401k plan accounts, where we are charged with ERISA section 3(38)
responsibility. Non-discretionary accounts are the client accounts for which we do not have such
responsibility.
As of December 31, 2023, the total amount of discretionary and non-discretionary client assets
that we managed, including the number of accounts, was:
U.S. Dollar Amount Total Number of Accounts
Discretionary $3,428,701,539 454
Non-discretionary $22,838,253 11
TOTAL $3,451,539,792 465