"Why do we manage a billion dollars in investments?" asked Cleves Delp, a principal and chief executive of the Delp Co. in Maumee.
"We can compete with anybody. We regularly go up against the likes of Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan - in cities such as Phoenix, San Diego, Houston, St. Louis, and Baltimore - and we win. The way we manage money is totally different."
The firm has certainly come a long way in its 48 years, and it has undergone an evolution.
Delp has outgrown three headquarters facilities in recent decades, including two on Erie Street in downtown Toledo and an office in Arrowhead Park.
It's been in its headquarters in Arrowhead since July 4, 2003.
The company, with 25 employees and revenues estimated by its owners at $9.5 million this year, could outgrow its current offices too.
Brad Delp, Cleves' brother and the other principal in the firm, said the company occupies nearly all of its 15,000 square-foot building, displacing several tenants. He is chairman of the firm that is an umbrella for several subsidiaries offering insurance, investment advice, and employee benefits.
The firm owns 2 acres of land adjacent to its building and could easily add another structure.
The brothers said their big breakthrough in expanding the firm in recent decades came from the realization they could grow their business by offering more expertise to existing clients.
"Any business can grow horizontally, by adding sales people," said Cleves Delp. "We decided to better serve the same clientele."
Mike Fischer, owner of Fischer Tool & Die Corp. in Temperance for the last 20 years, is among clients who have turned to Delp for a variety of needs.
"They have served me and my company very well," said Mr. Fischer, whose firm now has 105 workers.
The Delp brothers date the firm's beginning to 1958, the year when their father, the late John Delp, left his family's hardware-supply business in Toledo to start selling life insurance.
At first, he was an agent for Aetna Life Insurance Co. He quickly became a top producer and began building his own business, concentrated largely on estate planning, business-succession planning, and financial planning for owners of closely held companies.
Cleves Delp said much of his company's business is in the areas pioneered by his father. "That's still the focus of our practice," he said.
But it expanded into the investment-advisory field because the brothers began to realize a trend away from active management of investments, he said.
In recent years, the Delp Co. has attracted attention from some big insurers. It was featured in the annual report for American General Financial Group in 1998 and in American International Group Inc.'s annual report in 2002.
The firm's latest venture is half-ownership in the Husch Family Office LLC, a St. Louis company that sells financial planning, insurance, and money management to wealthy families on a fixed-fee basis. Some of the clients fall into the "billionaire class," said Cleves Delp.
Five years ago, the Delp brothers, both graduates of Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Mich., made a substantial donation to their alma mater in honor of their father, who died in 1998.
Their donation financed Delp Hall, which housed faculty offices, and an endowment for scholarships for students from families with family-owned businesses primarily in northwest Ohio.
Contact Homer Brickey at: homerbrickey@theblade.com or 419-724-6129.
Small Business Profile is a weekly feature on local companies. To be considered, send information about your company to Small Business Profiles, Business News, The Blade, P.O. Box 921, Toledo, Ohio 43697-0921.
First Published November 13, 2006, 11:50 a.m.
