Garrison Tops SEC-RIAs List

Garrison Asset Management LLC of Fayetteville is the single largest SEC-registered investment adviser in Northwest Arkansas with $191.3 million in managed assets. The company’s assets under management grew 8.6 percent in the last year and its accounts were up to 560 from 366 a year prior. (The list is available here.)

Kerry Bradley, the firm’s president, said a financial planning group, Investment Planners Inc. of Decatur, Ill., is responsible for about 80 percent of the firm’s new accounts. She said the individual attention given to each of their clients is one of the reasons the Illinois group sought out Garrison.

“We would like to add that many every year,” she said, adding that last year’s haul was probably the most accounts added in one year in the firm’s history.

The Business Journal annually ranks the SEC-registered investment advisers who operate within Benton, Crawford, Carroll, Madison, Sebastian and Washington counties by their total managed assets. The list begins on Page 16.

No. 2-ranked Greenwood Gearhart Inc. had $155.6 million in managed assets. The  firm was formerly M.A. Greenwood & Associates Inc. but changed its name when Brock Gearhart became vice president on April 1, 2010.

“We’re really delighted to have Brock join me,” Mary Ann Greenwood said. “He has the same investment philosophy I do. It’s been a lot of fun because it’s good to work with somebody that approaches things the way he does.”