The former chairman of NAPFA, a private equity investor, and president of Seattle-based Spangler Financial Group, Mark Spangler currently has some $100 million under management. Spangler, 49, chatted with Editorial Director William Glasgall recently about his practice and Tamarac Inc., a separate account portfolio management service where he is chairman.
Your practice is different than most. We have about 23 member families-Microsoft and biotech folks, pretty young, in their 30s. Members of the group have between $2 million and close to $20 million. They all have to be accredited investors. I never call anyone a client. They invest as members. We do pretty much everything together and are their sole manager–2000 took care of that. When someone comes to us and says, "You manage part of our wealth and we'll keep the rest elsewhere," we say, "We're not interested."
Where do you see the practice heading? It almost turns into a co-op. New members would have to purchase their share. I see myself in 15 to 20 years being able to step back and focus on private equity.
