(Source: Business Wire)Curbstone Group (Curbstone), a private money management firm led by a trio of Wall Street veterans, announces the opening of three offices located in Houston, Boston and Tampa. The firm uses a two-pronged investment strategy that focuses on value investments in publicly traded Master Limited Partnerships (MLPs) and investments in other hard asset-related companies in the energy, natural resources, materials and agriculture sectors.

The firm predicts that swelling global demand for dwindling natural resources will result in higher long-term returns from equity investments in the energy, natural resources, materials and agriculture sectors. Along the way, Curbstone's approach is positioned to generate significant current income by receiving distributions from its MLP investments and by collecting premiums from options sold around its equity positions.

Michael Catalano, Hinds Howard, Ryan Krueger and Andrew Nestor are the firm's principals, with Nestor handling business development while the other three partners handle money management.

Curbstone caters to accredited investors directly and professional financial advisors who hire Curbstone as an outside manager for clients. Each investor has a private account at Goldman Sachs in the investor's name, and can review each position and trade that occurs. Curbstone's philosophy and stated discipline is to invest around real assets and deliver part of the net profits into the investor's hands quarterly.

"We believe that over the next several years as the role of government expands, tax bills will rise. So, tax-friendly cash flows, like we are finding for our investors, will become even more important in the future," Nestor commented. "As the supplies of US debt and US dollars soar, it's quite clear that re-flation seeds are in the ground. Prices of natural resources, which are already in tight or shrinking supply, should benefit from a re-flationary environment." Curbstone believes it has a strategy that can succeed without relying on the next bull market, especially because they believe rising commodity prices and re-flation may delay the next bull market for several years.

The principles, who privately own 100 percent of the firm, manage Curbstone's portfolio exclusively. They also have a significant amount of personal capital invested through Curbstone in the same strategy as the clients. "We designed our own research and trading desks so that we'd be accountable for every win and loss and know exactly where to build in the future," Krueger said.

Howard, who has been investing in MLPs for nearly 15 years, will direct Curbstone's MLP strategy out of the Boston office.