Today we’d like to introduce you to Christopher Channer.
Christopher, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
In 1982, after working in the municipal bond business for 6 years, I decided that I wanted to learn the business of investment portfolio management. I started Channer Financial Corp. that year. But it was a selling organization, which I used as a vehicle to become a self-taught investment professional and to build capital. I was able to start that process successfully, and sold that business to a New York Stock Exchange firm after 5 years. I was so determined to be a student – and a teacher – of the principles of portfolio management, that I intensely studied my carefully selected mentors of Sir John Templeton, Peter Lynch and Warren Buffett. I also co-authored the book, Ask The Conservative Investor, and produced and co-hosted the television program known as The Conservative Investor™. I then went to work at the Chicago Corporation, were I learned many aspect of the stock research business, and how a typical retail brokerage firm worked, inside and out. Then, I served a few years at Morgan Stanley. This commenced the 20-year process of becoming a self-taught investment professional. And, of learning how the ways and traditions of the Wall Street culture were unacceptable to me.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
The road we traveled was filled with challenges. I was essentially attempting to sail into the stiff winds of the well-established investment community. Many folks I the investment business tried to resist my objective. But Warren Buffett gave me permission to publish articles regarding what I had learned from him, and John Templeton agreed to let me interview him for a front page detailed article that was published in The Market Chronicle in NYC. Then Paul Harvey befriended me. He loved our fundamental approach, which he saw me espouse on television week after week. He sometimes read my editorials live on his daily national broadcasts. But he was my inspiration and he helped me to believe that I could do whatever I believed in, if I would work hard, never stop growing in character, and to be a possibility thinker. That lead to the creation of Channer Investment Management, Inc.
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Channer Investment Management – what should we know?
We manage portfolios for ‘Millionaire Next Door’ types and their families. Our clients are frugal people who believe in building wealth, the old-fashioned way. They have devoted themselves to our non-emotional approach. They admire our investment tenets and disciplines. They have very high confidence that America’s best businesses will continue to grow over meaningful periods of time, and that owning pieces of those businesses in a balanced portfolio, will fulfill their objective: to achieve and maintain financial independence throughout their retirement years. We are a fee-based management organization utilizing a proprietary approach to security selection.
We are not a selling-organization (no commissions). We think most of our competitors are remnants of the ‘ways and traditions’ of Wall Street, and by design, we have grown away and beyond their model. We take on very few new accounts and have a client retention rate that exceeds every expectation we have had.
Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
The big three, Templeton, Lynch and Buffett, deserve my appreciation, my loyalty, and my gratitude for helping me to be fully devoted to conservative investors. They also re-enforced the values of being committed only to the client and to resisting the traditions of national brokerage houses. They, my family, Paul Harvey and dozens of guests that appeared on the television show we created, helped a great deal, and they only had one requirement of me: do what is right and ‘stay the course’.
Contact Info:
- Website: channerinvestment.com
- Phone: 847-934-3800
- Email: christopher.channer@lpl.com
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