Why Clients Choose Us
Why Do Clients Choose Us?
We believe that high net worth families and foundations choose to work with us primarily due to the added value we provide in four areas:
- Independent Advice
- Our focus is on providing independent, objective solutions for our clients. We charge an advisory fee for our services and have no obligations to sell proprietary investment products.
- Risk Management and Returns
- We take the time to get a clear understanding of whether our client is focused on wealth preservation, or has a need for income or growth.
- We focus on investment allocations that meet each client’s specific risk profile. We often meet with prospective clients who are frustrated by the mismatch between the investments their advisors have chosen and their actual appetite for risk.
- We customize our clients’ portfolios and concentrate on long-term strategies designed to reduce portfolio volatility.
- Our investment philosophy centers on optimizing after-tax, risk-adjusted performance.
- Transparency
- We produce straightforward portfolio updates, transparent reporting on fees and comprehensive tracking of our clients’ consolidated situations.
- Proactive Communication
- We communicate proactively—and often.
- We communicate with you through in-person meetings, by phone and often through email to keep you fully informed.
Making your life easier
Our proactive communication and innovative technology are tools we use to simplify complex portfolios. We offer a consolidated solution for you to view your entire portfolio, across all relationships, in one place. By providing you with a clear picture of your wealth and how it’s managed, our goal is to help you sleep well at night.
How We Work With Other Advisors
We Collaborate With You and Your Team
High net worth families and foundations (with liquid assets of $75M-$100M+) often diversify their portfolios by working with more than one financial advisor. In these situations, we find that clients generally don’t have an understanding of:
- What their consolidated picture looks like
- How the different portfolios work together
We are very comfortable working with other advisors. We are flexible to take the lead in complex multi-advisor environments due to our experience and use of technology to produce straightforward consolidated portfolio performance reporting.
Working together with your team, you can expect that we will be prepared to:
- Align our portfolio allocation to work in concert with your other portfolio strategies.
- Provide consolidated performance updates for all your portfolios.
- Communicate frequently and proactively with you and your other advisors.
- Serve your best interests with independent and objective guidance.
- Provide transparency to you and the team.
By working collaboratively with you and your team of professionals, we provide a simple and cohesive experience.
Case Study
Concern About Risk and Returns
Concern About Risk and Returns
Challenge
A high net worth family is concerned that their financial advisor is taking too much risk, leading to poor returns.
Client Concern
While hiking with us on a beautiful day in the desert, a former business school professor and member of a high net worth family began an interesting conversation that led us to a discussion about the concepts of risk and reward. Clearly this individual was knowledgeable about both, yet she expressed that she was concerned about the amount of risk being taken in the family’s portfolios.
Strategy and Solution
A sophisticated and informed family who’s not comfortable with how their portfolios are allocated—remarkably, we run into this situation more often than one would expect.
Here are the steps we took to assist this family:
- We reviewed their portfolios in depth and developed an overall portfolio strategy.
- We prepared a detailed allocation that met their appetite for risk. We then demonstrated how each position in their portfolio fits together as part of a larger picture.
- We set them up with a reporting solution that summarized their asset allocation and compared each fund to its benchmark.
- We proactively communicated with them on a regular basis.
Our strategy was to clearly define the portfolio allocation and was intended to give them comfort that it was in alignment with their investment goals.
Case Study
Transparency and Fees
Transparency and Fees
Challenge
A high net worth individual was concerned that his advisor was not being up front regarding the charges for managing his muni bond trades.
Client Concern
This individual gave us a copy of his statement and asked if we could verify the amount of commission he was paying for his muni bonds. His advisor told him he was not charging him a commission for the muni bond trades, but only an advisory fee based on assets under management.
Strategy and Solution
Muni bonds are the last bastion for hidden commissions on trades. This advisor earned a spread on the trades, which was not disclosed on the client’s statement.
- We reviewed the potential client’s portfolio in detail and used the EMMA website to verify what price he paid for the muni bonds. Spreads on bond trades can generally be determined based on publicly available information.
- We developed a report showing the spread on a representative sample of the municipal bonds his advisor bought and sold. The individual was being charged a significant spread on the muni bond trades.
- We used a muni bond trader to explain how muni bond pricing works and why no commission was being reflected on his statement.
Our strategy was to educate this gentleman on how municipal bond trading works and the importance of transparency when working with an advisor.
Case Study
Developing a Detailed Financial Plan
Developing a Detailed Financial Plan
Challenge
A wealthy family has an illiquid portfolio and no detailed financial plan in place.
Client Concern
Despite their significant wealth, the family had not taken the time to put together a financial plan. Their portfolio was heavy in real estate. They expressed a concern about the impact on their estate planning of holding so many illiquid assets.
Strategy and Solution
We listened to the family’s concerns and took the following steps:
- Performed a detailed analysis of their income and expenses, as well as their assets and liabilities.
- Utilized LPL Financial’s High Net Worth Solutions team to build a sophisticated financial plan that offered potential estate planning strategies and ways to develop a more diversified portfolio.
- Worked together with an estate planning attorney to complete the plan.
Our strategy to assist this family was to develop a detailed financial plan that could be utilized as an integral part of their estate plan.
Case Study
Understanding a Foundation's Allocation
Understanding a Foundation's Allocation
Challenge
One of our Foundation clients had a significant allocation of assets to hedge funds and private equity funds. The CEO of the Foundation wanted to get a better understanding of the holdings and what choices he had or should be making.
Client Concern
The CEO was concerned about the portfolio’s performance and exposure to illiquid assets. He needed a knowledgeable team to help evaluate the hedge/private equity fund holdings.
Strategy and Solution
We worked with the CEO of the Foundation to:
- Evaluate the performance of the entire portfolio.
- Meet individually with the hedge/private equity fund managers to evaluate the holdings.
- Review important information on the redemption schedules for each fund and any holdback provisions.
- Analyze which funds we would recommend the Foundation hold or liquidate.
Our strategy for this client was to take a lot of complex information, pare it down and simplify it so he could make informed decisions.
Case Study
Working as a Team with Multiple Advisors
Working as a Team with Multiple Advisors
Challenge
A family in a multi-advisor relationship is disappointed with the performance of their portfolio and concerned with the risks being taken.
Client Concern
This ultra-high net worth family was working with five different financial advisors who did not collaborate and develop a cohesive strategy for them. The result was hundreds of pages of complex financial statements to review instead of one consolidated report.
When the family took a look at their holdings, they noticed a significant number of speculative positions in their accounts. These positions were not consistent with the conservative risk profile that they had communicated to each of their advisors.
After their business manager referred them to us, the family shared that they “couldn’t sleep well at night.”
Strategy and Solution
This was not the first time we were referred to clients who had trouble with the complexity of their multi-advisor portfolio. We took these steps to assist the family:
- We reviewed their portfolios in depth, developed an overall portfolio strategy and, together with the family, defined a clear mandate for each advisor.
- We built a relationship with the other advisors and opened up lines of communication to ensure that the team had a coordinated game plan for the client.
- We simplified the reporting from hundreds of pages of statements to a one page monthly summary.
Our strategy was intended to try and help them sleep well at night by taking a complex situation that wasn’t meeting the family’s objectives and simplify the process and communication.