“An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.”
—Benjamin Franklin
Much more than investments.
Our goal is to provide family office style services to each and every client.
Investment Management
Predefined asset allocation models. Charts. Over diversification. Black boxes. These are common tools and attributes among some investment providers you will not find with us. Furthermore, we are not momentum investors who simply follow the herd. Because our clients span the efficient frontier of risk and return, we conduct our own fundamental research, joining this with our decades of expertise, to create portfolios that fit the client, not the other way around. Among the goals of our security selection process is to spot trends before they are readily seen by the overall investment community, conducting research to find the best companies available to benefit from that trend. In other words, it is determining what will be on page one of The Wall Street Journal tomorrow, that is found on page fifteen today. We consider all investment tools and options at our disposal that enhance our ability to achieve your goals, while maintaining your risk parameters. This is vital because the structure of our managed portfolios will vary, even within families with multiple generations, due to objectives, size, prevailing economic and market trends and other factors.
Financial Planning
By understanding the values, goals, and priorities important to you, we will help you develop a plan that is objective, personally tailored, and focused on intelligently crafted solutions to help ensure financial security, whether across only your lifespan or over multiple future generations. Financial planning encompasses many stages of your financial life, such as saving for a child’s future education, securing your retirement, or planning to leave your legacy. These can work together like gears in a clock, with many small pieces coming together to accomplish one common goal. We can help you evaluate and work towards your most important goals.
- College Planning
- Cashflow Analysis and/or Debt Management
- Taxes
- Risk Management
- Estate Planning
Retirement Planning
Retirement should be enjoyed. Whether you are setting goals for your retirement savings or crafting a plan to effectively distribute your retirement savings, we will partner with you to move towards success. Through education and periodic evaluation, we seek to go beyond the standard financial framework to help you achieve the freedom and flexibility to live into your personal retirement goals while removing the stress of managing the financial details.
Tax Strategies
Wealth affords many opportunities but also creates new and sometimes substantial challenges, taxes being one of them. While we do not believe that tax-efficiency should be the driving force in your portfolio management, it is an invaluable tool to accomplish your financial goals. We utilize tax-conscious strategies, such as asset location and tax loss harvesting as well as direct indexing when appropriate, to mitigate your tax burdens both now and in the future. We will always consider how our investment decisions can align with your tax goals, and we are always available to work with your CPA to better meet your needs.
Estate Planning
As family wealth accumulates, the greater the need for a partner to join you to develop a comprehensive, long-term strategy for managing your legacy. This may range from the traditional Last Will and Testament to the utilization of a trust, or even a family mission statement to guide your descendants for generations to come. In collaboration with your attorney, we can help ensure that your wishes are defined and documented and that you and your family have the most effective resources to carry out your plan with peace of mind.
Network of Professionals
We will work with your network of professionals or introduce you to independent professionals across a spectrum of tax, legal, banking, trust and custodial services, and estate planning. In the right circumstances, however, we will also engage trusted partners, who focus their expertise in areas we don’t view as our core competency, such as private or alternative investments, or where a portfolio may have limitations that doesn’t allow prudent diversification.
Onboarding
Introduction
We want to know all about you—your life goals and dreams, what worries you, and what limits you. In turn, you also need to know us. We’ll disclose the details that govern how we would suggest approaching your financial needs and managing your portfolio within them. Just as you have goals, ours is singularly focused on how we effectively work together to accomplish yours. Only by understanding who you are and where you are in your journey and season of life can we help you successfully plan and reach your future.
Start the Relationship
When you choose to work with us, we take that decision seriously. You are owed a clear and comprehensive reference point that both defines our relationship and holds us accountable to fulfilling your needs. We’ll go over our Investment Advisory Agreement so you know what to expect from us.
Open Accounts
We utilize custodians to hold your assets to provide you with the highest level of security possible. Our custodians require information from you to both open your accounts and transfer existing assets in. Paperwork is never fun, but we aim to make it less of a burden. We’ll take as much of the work off of you as possible, and when an item needs your attention, we’ll walk you through it.
Review Periodically
No plan works effectively if it doesn’t allow for flexibility. The reality is, things change over time. On your schedule, we will periodically meet to review your investment performance, progress towards your goals, and any life changes you’ve experienced. When appropriate, we will adjust our investment management to align to your circumstances. We’re in this together.
Frequently Asked Questions
No. For additional information, please find this free and simple search tool to research us and our financial professionals available at: https://www.investor.gov/CRS
We partner exclusively with trusted custodians who have consistently demonstrated financial strength and reliability in both stable and challenging market conditions. We periodically evaluate all custodians available to us to ensure we are providing you with what we believe is the best service and protection possible. The security of your assets is and always will be a top priority in our decision to work with a custodian.
In meeting your financial goals, risk tolerance and overall expectations, we evaluate both public and private investment opportunities to provide an optimal strategy. Our long-term approach relies heavily on individual stocks and bonds we personally research, not highly commissioned products, such as annuities, casino-like options such as meme stocks and crypto currencies, or the latest fad concocted by Wall Street. We believe in our process so strongly that our personal accounts are frequently aligned with our clients, at least from a macro perspective.
We use a time-weighted return calculation, provided by an independent, third-party vendor, to measure performance in all portfolios we manage.
For the large majority, clients have been with their advisor for a decade or more. As a result, it is not uncommon for our client relationships to span two and three generations.
We charge a reasonable flat or tiered fee that is based on a percentage of assets we oversee and manage. Fees are billed quarterly, in arrears, based on the ending value of your account on the last day of the quarter. Most often, we debit the fee directly from your investment account shortly after quarter end. For more information, please see Item 5: Fees and Compensation in our Form ADV Part 2A.
Yes, in fact, you should expect it. When holding an initial conversation with an investment firm, there should never be the presumption of opening a new account. Just as you need to believe we can help you achieve your goals, we need to understand your financial circumstances in order to help. Only when we both have a reasonable expectation of meeting your goals will a formal relationship be established.
Yes! We view the planning involved in growing wealth of equal importance with wealth preservation and income distribution. Understanding the benefits of starting early, especially the gift of compounding, will make planning for a comfortable future far easier than waiting later in life.
No. We do not sell any kind of insurance or commissioned investment product. We especially dislike annuities, as they are costly and generally ill-suited for most of the investing public. For insurance products that protect one’s income stream, or assets such as a home and automobiles, we are happy to make a referral.
The CFP® certification represents the pinnacle of professional achievement in financial planning. This credential signifies that an advisor has met rigorous education, examination, experience, and ethical standards to provide comprehensive financial guidance. In order to use the marks, aspiring CFP® professionals must complete all the following requirements:
- Foundational Knowledge: Complete coursework through a CFP Board-Registered Program, covering key areas such as investment planning, retirement strategies, tax planning, estate planning, risk management, and the psychology of financial planning. Additionally, candidates must hold a bachelor’s degree or higher from an accredited institution.
- Demonstrating Competency: Candidate must pass a six-hour comprehensive exam covering all aspects of financial planning with real-life scenarios.
- Ethical Commitment: Candidates must adhere to the CFP Board’s Code of Ethics and Standards of Conduct, which includes the fiduciary duty. Candidates must also disclose any background information and undergo a thorough background check to ensure they uphold the ethical standards.
- Practical Application: Candidates must accumulate either 6,000 hours of professional experience in financial planning or 4,000 hours through an apprenticeship that meets additional criteria.
Choosing to work with a CFP® professional ensures that you are partnering with an advisor who has demonstrated a high level of expertise and ethical commitment to your financial well-being.
Additional information can be found here: https://www.cfp.net/why-cfp-certification/the-standard-of-excellence