Atlanta, GA – May 21, 2007 – Buckhead Investment Partners, LLC (BIP) announced this week that it has launched an investment advisory firm to serve the needs of affluent individuals and institutions throughout the Southeastern United States.  The advisory firm, headquartered in Atlanta, will offer investors a diverse set of investment products, including private-equity, hedged strategies, real estate, and traditional equity and fixed income investments.

Buckhead Investment Partners brings together Mark A. Buffington and William J. Harris, who will both serve as Managing Partners of BIP.  Mark and Bill have a combined 26 years experience in the investment industry.  The Managing Partners will be supported by an Advisory Board and a select group of portfolio managers.

“Unlike many investment advisory firms that use a ‘one size fits all’ approach by either implementing a mutual fund-only strategy or investing primarily in their proprietary recommended stock list, BIP will customize solutions based on the needs of the clients by managing a number of unique investment strategies in-house.  With our comprehensive investment platform, we will also have the flexibility to access several of the top investment managers in all asset classes,” stated Bill Harris, co-founder of Buckhead Investment Partners.  

In particular, Buckhead Investments will highlight its emerging private-equity business, which boasts Vendormate, Inc. (www.vendormate.com) as one of its portfolio companies.  Vendormate was recently named as one of the Top 40 most innovative companies in Georgia.

Central to BIP’s product offering will be its proprietary Balanced Return strategy, a hedge fund-like strategy that uses covered call writing and quantitative techniques to enhance yield and increase safety for equity investors.  The strategy – which is offered as a separately managed account to accredited and unaccredited investors – has produced impressive absolute and risk-adjusted returns for a competitive fee.

Buckhead Investment Partners, a leader in the use of technology to improve operations, uses proprietary decision-making models to optimize the selection of traditional equity and fixed income investments.  Selecting the best funds, ETFs, and securities on the basis of risk, return, and cost will be the focus of BIP’s equity and fixed income advice.

“When I made the decision to merge my firm, Peachtree Financial Management, into Buckhead Investment Partners, I wanted to maintain the core values of PFM at my new firm,” said Mark Buffington.  “Producing attractive risk-adjusted returns at a fair price, and offering my clients access to truly unique investment products is very important to me… mostly because I put over 85% of my family’s liquid net worth behind the proprietary products I develop and recommend to clients.  Putting my product knowledge together with Bill’s planning and relationship management expertise will enable us to offer something very unique to clients.”

Mark Buffington earned an MBA from Tulane University where he focused in Finance and Econometrics.  He holds an undergraduate degree from the Georgia Institute of Technology.  He serves on the Board of Directors of Vendormate, Inc. and Ingenious Med, Inc. and has 12 years of experience developing and managing proprietary investment products.

Bill Harris holds an MBA from Georgia State University with a Major in Personal Financial Planning, and an undergraduate degree from the Georgia Institute of Technology.  He has spent the previous 14 years building client relationships, enhancing private client services, and managing successful teams for U.S. Trust and Charles Schwab & Co. in Atlanta.