To say that Dory Wiley, President and CEO of Dallas’ Commerce Street Capital LLC, is a “financial expert” is an understatement.
As portfolio manager for three of the investment banking firm’s funds—as well as chairman of alternative assets for the $114 billion Teacher Retirement System of Texas—Wiley is hardly the typical “outdated analyst type” he jokingly calls himself.
At TRS, Wiley helped turn the public pension fund around from an unfunded liability of $13.5 billion in 2002 by making it one of the most aggressive investors of its kind in riskier alternative assets, increasing the fund’s investment in those assets from 9 percent to 30 percent.
By pumping pension-fund money into everything from Las Vegas real estate and industrial properties in Mexico to private equity and hedge funds, Wiley has helped TRS boost its performance by a whopping $2 billion or so each year.
“There’s risk with every asset, with every investment,” he says. “We just have to keep a whole portfolio focus.” As a result of the alternative strategy, Wiley adds, TRS “should be a safer fund with a higher return in the future because of better diversification and less downside risk.”
Wiley also plies his wiles at CSC, the agile investment-banking firm that formed after a split from SAMCO in 2007. Wiley and fellow founders Jim Gardner and William “Tex” Gross work with 53 CSC experts who serve banks with three lines of business: investment banking, fund management, and bank development.
While some firms may be sweating the credit crunch, Wiley’s has an optimistic outlook. In fact, he says, the downturn is making it easier to identify investment opportunities.
“Dallas hasn’t seen the impact” of the down economy yet, he says. “We have nothing but bright days ahead of us.”
