Ingram’s September 2022

i250 ECONOMIC REPORT

tively manage and navigate our business based on opportunities and challenges, and we’ll advise and help our clients do this as well.” His boss, UMB Financial Corp. CEO Mariner Kemper, noted that “Our job is to be prepared for all times— good and bad. Our business practices remain consistent and unchanged, and it’s paying off.” Their contemporary at CommerceBank, which routinely pushes for biggest bank honors, is Kevin Barth, who sees a reces sion as “somewhat likely. There are some unique circumstances associated with this inflationary period, including per sistent supply-chain issues and the sig nificantly higher food and energy prices due to Russia’s invading Ukraine,” Barth said. But things might ease: “Relief from price increases due to these two issues could significantly reduce the need for continuing to increase interest rates and decrease the likelihood of a recession.” Peter Mallouk, who now leads the re gion’s largest wealth-management enter prise following Creative Planning’s ac quisition of Lockton Retirement Services last year, anticipates a mild recession.

“The best investment plan assumes that down turns will happen regularly and can’t be predicted.”

— PETER MALLOUK , CEO, CREATIVE PLANNING

“Especially given the Federal Re serve’s efforts to soften the economy up a bit,” Mallouk said. “It’s impossible to predict though, and I always recommend people invest as if they have no idea what will happen over the short run.” With his firm now in control of $235 billion in assets under management or advisement, Mallouk is not wavering from the advice Creative Planning has long preached to clients: “The best in vestment plan assumes that down turns will happen regularly and can’t be pre dicted.” At Mariner Wealth Advisors, where Brian Leitner oversees the regional lead ership group, “our investment team be lieves the odds of recession in the next

12-15 months are highly likely, but un likely in 2022. If we do see a recession, it should be relatively mild, in which unemployment rises a bit and GDP goes very slightly negative as do earnings, but nothing like a 2007/2008 variety where we have massive dislocation in the credit markets and earnings declines of 30 percent-plus.” Given the unknowns, Leitner identi fies the firm’s priority: “The most impor tant initiative is that we make sure we continue to educate and communicate with our clients about the markets, their current risk exposure and how a poten tial downturn may impact their financial situation,” he said. “All too often, in- vestors make quick decisions based on

The new single-terminal design at Kansas City International Airport, where test runs of plane arrivals recently took place, is a springboard for new projects that will elevate the region’s profile, business leaders say.

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Kansas City’s Business Media

September 2022