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Finding BTC Capital Management is tricky; its entrance is tucked away in an alcove at one end of the Ruan Center lobby. Likewise, BTC Capital Management, the 6-year-old investment management arm of Bankers Trust Co., may still be one of the best-kept secrets around. Count on both of those things changing, said Scott Eltjes, president and CEO of BTC Capital Management.

Eltjes, 43, was recently tapped by Bankers Trust President and CEO Suku Radia to lead the growth of BTC Capital Management as it sets out to broaden its base of institutional clients under its own brand.

BTC Capital Management, which operates under a separate board of directors headed by Radia, is responsible for both the bank’s wealth management clients’ assets as well as investments ranging from a minimum of $2 million to several hundred million made directly for institutional investors. Those institutional clients include insurance companies, bank trust departments, pension plans, public funds, endowments and foundations.

“When you look at the direct clients and the wealth management clients, we have nearly $2 billion under management,” said Eltjes, who holds a Chartered Financial Analyst designation. “We are doing a very good job managing (those assets), and one reason I’m here is to get the word out.”

Untapped potential

Eltjes, who also serves as senior vice president of investment management and business development for Bankers Trust, said he’s excited about the opportunity to lead the investment advisory arm while also getting to work “at the 30,000-foot level” to develop Bankers Trust’s business development culture.

“I have two roles here, and that’s really what attracted me,” he said. “My background, my focus, my passion has always been (both) investment management and business development. To me, they’ve always gone hand in hand. To have the opportunity to grow and develop a team, as I look back, has always been a theme running through my career.”

Eltjes, a 1988 graduate of the University of Northern Iowa, earned a master of business administration degree from Drake University in 1993. He has nearly 20 years of investment management experience.

Early in his career, he worked as a pension consultant for Principal Financial Group Inc. and later as regional managing principal for Wells Fargo Institutional Trust Group. As a managing principal with VMF Capital LLC, he helped build that company into one of the largest independent investment management groups in Iowa. West Bancorporation Inc. acquired VMF Capital in 2003 and in late 2005, merged the business with another subsidiary, Investors Management Group, within its WB Capital Management Inc. subsidiary. Eltjes led WB Capital Management, which manages $4.3 billion in assets, as its CEO until joining Bankers Trust in February.

“Considering leaving was really difficult,” he said. “But the opportunity here was very clear, so there was never any doubt in my mind that Bankers Trust would be a great place to work. And it’s a fairly unique opportunity, in my mind, to be given the opportunity to grow a business within an already very established, highly respected institution.”

Bankers Trust formed BTC Capital Management as a separate registered investment advisory group in 2003, but the growth potential for that business remains virtually untapped, Eltjes said. It will continue to work closely with the bank’s wealth management division, BTC Wealth Management, to serve internal customers as well as to extend BTC Capital Management’s services to outside investment consultants, broker-dealer firms and other banks.

“What we’re really working on is the continued development, name recognition and branding of the registered investment advisory group,” Eltjes said. “We have a very nice list of clients in that capacity already, but we know there’s a real opportunity to not only grow our investment management business internally, but also to grow that through external distribution.

“There are a lot of banks that really don’t have those services in-house,” he said. “We have the ability to sub-advise and provide investment management services to other institutions, and that’s going to be a real opportunity for our growth.”

BTC Capital Management currently has nine investment professionals, a number Eltjes plans to increase this year.

“We’re pretty aggressively looking at more staff,” he said. “And in this economy, we’ve got a real nice opportunity to add staff, and the quality of candidates is certainly very strong.” At some point, BTC Capital Management will move from its present space to another downtown location but remain fairly close to the bank’s headquarters, Eltjes said.

Risk-aware

Having moved from one bank-owned investment management company to another, Eltjes recognizes the synergies that model provides, particularly in tough economic times.

“It’s really interesting, one real advantage the bank-owned investment advisory model has in this economic environment is that a lot of consumers and investors are looking for some sense of safety and soundness,” he said. “I think Bankers Trust has a great story to tell there. We’ve seen considerable deposit growth; lending activity is still very strong. I think the name-brand footprint that we have has become a real strong plus in this environment.”

Eltjes said he’s a big believer in a risk-aware investment process.

“I think BTC Capital has done a very good job of managing risk historically. My views on prudent risk management, that’s not something that’s new here,” he said.

The recession has certainly changed investors’ perspectives, he said. “I think we really benefit from that, because people are going to be more risk-aware, more risk-sensitive,” he said. “Once we’re well into the next rally, I think there will be some lessons learned that won’t be forgotten.”

Professionally, reporting directly to Suku Radia represents a tremendous opportunity, Eltjes said.

“He’s got a terrific leadership style; he’s very high-energy,” he said. “I knew that I would enjoy the environment and that I’d learn a lot from him. I also knew the pace would be fast. It’s been both of that, and it’s been a lot of fun.”