By Frances Denmark
The investors who call upon Jeffrey Scott are looking for a portfolio manager with a strong radar for sources of alpha in a lower-return world. Scott, 47, has spent the past year building an outsourced chief investment officer division for the consulting firm Wurts & Associates in Seattle, where he heads up the $1.3 billion discretionary asset management unit. The sum is much smaller than the $40 billion he previously managed for Alaska’s sovereign wealth fund, the Alaska Permanent Fund in Juneau, and before that, the $56 billion he managed for Microsoft Corp.’s absolute return portfolio. But, says Scott, the job of helping investors balance risk and return through carefully selected alternative assets is more critical than ever. ...