MDL Capital Management opens Downtown headquarters
MDL Capital Management unveiled its new corporate headquarters Downtown on Tuesday -- a milestone for the rapidly growing, minority-owned firm and its founder and chairman, Mark D. Lay.
The company's relocation to expanded new offices, which officially open Monday, fulfills a long-time goal set by Aliquippa native Lay of having his business located in his own "hometown."
"We started here in Pittsburgh 11 years ago with a dream, a plan and a vision for where this enterprise would take us," said Lay, who addressed a gathering of employees, board members, political officials and other invited guests at the company's sixth-floor training room.
"Dreams do come true," said Steve Sanders, MDL Capital president and co-chief executive officer with Lay, at the remodeled MDL Financial Center at 309 Smithfield St. The offices span more than 10,500 square feet on the fifth and sixth floors.
The company, which this year has been ranked by Black Enterprise magazine as the country' largest minority-owned fixed management firm, started with an initial goal of managing $1 billion in assets. But robust growth over the last few years has increased that total to just over $4.1 billion, and Lay said the expectation now is to see the total reach $12 billion to $15 billion in the next three years.
"As we add clients, we need the support staff to manage their money properly," Lay said, explaining that the company has added about 13 employees over the last two or three years. That drove the need for the new office space, which more than doubles the size of the company's former offices at 225 Ross St. The company actually moved from those offices about two months ago, said Lay, who added that MDL Capital has been operating from temporary offices at 4 Smithfield St., while it awaited completion of the nearly $1.5 million renovation of the MDL Financial Center building. Lay owns the building in partnership with Ross Bianco, a local architect.
In addition to the 16 employees at the Pittsburgh office, MDL has six employees at an advisory office in Philadelphia, and another two at an office in New York, said Lay.
He has appeared on CNBC-TV and Bloomberg Financial TV, and has been quoted in Time, Fortune and Forbes magazines. The company's current roster of 103 institutional clients includes public pension funds in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Tennessee and New York, and its corporate clients include Dominion Resources, Shell Oil Corp., and Eat 'n Park.
Lay also pledged to have his firm continue to serve as an example for other minority firms to emulate.
"This means more than the bricks and drywall that is up here," he said. "We will use this as a platform for other women and minorities in this community."
