Nuveen Hires Director of Newly Formed Unit

Published August 08, 2001, 1:00 a.m. EDT

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Alternative Products Continues to be a Firm Priority

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Nuveen Investments has hired Michael McGrath as managing director in the company's newly formed International and Alternative Investment Products Development Group, the company announced today. With the addition of McGrath, the new unit, which was formed a couple of months ago, is now comprised of five people.

McGrath will report to Alan Berkshire, a senior VP at Nuveen, who heads the new unit.

The increasing popularity of alternative investments among wealthy investors prompted the formation of the business unit, according to a representative for the company. 'Nuveen's target market is advisors who serve high-net-worth clients and more and more of them have been asking us about alternative products,' said the representative. Those products include separately managed accounts, exchange-traded funds and unit investment trusts, she said.

The creation of the new unit is not the first action the company has taken to expand its alternative investment business. In June, Nuveen announced that it would purchase San Francisco-based Symphony Asset Management, an institutional money manager of market-neutral and alternative investments. The firm announced it would pay $210 million in cash for the firm and the deal was completed on July 17.

Before joining Nuveen, McGrath was managing director with Gruntal & Co., an investment firm in New York. There he worked on research, product development and marketing for a variety of financial products in the U.S. and Europe. McGrath available for interviews.