Arkansas firm benefits from economic tumult.

EVEN THOUGH THE WORST of the economic bloodbath left many portfolios looking more like Jackson Pollock paintings than gainful investments, Ed Mahaffy hasn't received many panicky calls.

While the value of many financial advisory firms' total assets under management declined, the value of total assets soared at Mahaffy's firm, Clientfirst Wealth Management of Little Rock.

As of March, the value of Clientfirst's total assets grew 31 percent year over year to $145 million. As of last week, that number jumped another 14 percent to $165.1 million. (However, the document wasn't filed with the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission in time to be reflected on this year's list of the state's largest money managers, which starts on Page 28.)

Based on total assets under management, Clientfirst ranked 228th in a national list of 352 wealth management firms printed in the July issue of Financial Advisor magazine. Of the 48 firms on that list managing assets of between $120 million and $160 million, Clientfirst was one of only seven whose assets grew year over year.

Mahaffy attributed the surge to his diversified position when the financial turmoil spurred a flight to safety.

"When you had this market turmoil, you had investors exiting stocks, looking for conservative strategies, anything from CDs to high-grade bonds," Mahaffy said from his sixth-story office in the Prospect Building on University Avenue.

"And I design and manage bond portfolios in addition to designing and managing exchange-traded funds."

Fortunately for his clients, Mahaffy adhered to high-grade bonds, which were just the sort of life preserver sought out by frantic investors.

"If I'd been in junk bonds," Mahaffy said, "I'd have gotten clobbered."

And that rush to high-rated bonds caused prices to swell.

"Because people looked around and went, 'Where can I put my money where it won't get lost, where it won't go down? That's where I want to be,'" Mahaffy said.

"So that kind of paper got a tailwind and that's where the growth came from. And it came in a hurry."