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In-home, or phone appointments are available…
We will ask you to provide copies of statements summarizing current investments, income and other earnings, recent tax returns, retirement plan information, other assets and liabilities, wills and trusts, insurance policies, and other pertinent information. We will then meet with you to discuss your financial circumstances, investment goals and objectives, and determine your risk tolerance. Based on the information you share with us, we will analyze your situation and recommend an appropriate asset allocation or investment strategy.
If we agree to work together, you provide us with copies of your current account statements, that you plan to fund your newly established account with.
You complete an investment advisory agreement, a custodial agreement, a transfer request. We manage the transfer process and will let you know when your assets begin to arrive. The transfer of securities [non-cash balances] typically takes 4 to 6 weeks.
We are a FEE-ONLY advisory firm
This means that we are compensated based only on fee income, either on an Custom Consultancy hourly basis, (no minimum relationship size is required) OR as a percent (I believe the highlighted language must be added) of a client’s total market value that we are actually actively managing as opposed to being paid based on brokerage transactions or commissioned product sales. This approach directly aligns your success with ours, if your account(s) prosper, so do we. Many clients believe this arrangement places our motives in the best alignment with theirs.
How to interpret the chart below: We charge 0.90% ANNUALLY on the first $2 million of your relationship/your assets under our management. Our minimum initial relationship size is $350,000 per family, for ongoing investment management services, which may comprise one or more accounts of various market values/sizes.
As with most professional services, a fee is the traditional form of compensation paid for services rendered. However, in the financial services industry, brokers, financial advisors and planners have been historically compensated in a couple of different ways; commissions and/or fees. Transparency and disclosure is what is most important when is comes to the topic of “how we are compensated”… Consistent with our mandate to act in the capacity as a fiduciary and avoid conflicts of interest wherever possible, Four Seasons IM is compensated solely based on fees from its investment management service. We sell no products, and receive no commission and/or other compensation from our clients.
With this in mind, and in an effort to educate, you will find the different industry compensation structures [Investopedia Link] below:
Commissions
An advisor working on a commission basis will generate compensation after his or her client purchases a product. Sometimes the commission is obvious, but other times it can be more difficult to determine. We believe commissions can create a potential conflict-of-interest for an advisor because he/she may have an incentive to recommend a product that compensates him/her the most whether or not those investments are really best for you, the client
Fee-Only
An advisor may describe his or her practice as “fee-only” if, and only if, all of the advisor’s compensation from all of his or her client work comes exclusively from the clients in the form of fixed, flat, hourly, percentage or performance-based fees. Therefore, a fee-only advisor, would not be permitted to sell/provide life insurance, long-term care insurance, annuities or any other investment for commission.
Fee-Based
Fee-based planners blend the commission-only and fee-only models. They can provide an investment and get a commission from that transaction, or they may charge you a fee calculated as a percentage of assets to manage your portfolio, or they may do both.
Your securities & assets will be maintained in an account(s) at an independent qualified professional custodian.
Our clients use SEI Private Trust Company/SEI PTC [“the custodian”] to custody the securities for all accounts that we manage. You will enter a separate custodial agreement with the custodian. Read Why your Advisor Chose SEI Private Trust Company to learn more.
SEIPTC may also provide a number of other convenient & specialized services, when appropriate:
(a) Personal Trust Services, SEI Personal Trust Services
(b) Checking/Banking, SEI Cash Access Account
(c) Securities Backed Line of Credit, SEI Securities Backed Line of Credit Account
You will always maintain full and complete ownership rights to all assets/securities held in your account(s), including the right to withdraw securities or cash, proxy voting and receiving transaction confirmations. The use of an independent qualified custodian ensures you receive independently prepared monthly reports and statements. Essentially, you provide us with a limited power of attorney to direct the purchases, sales, distributions (only to a specific account you have predetermined), and to charge our management fee, to your account(s). All of the costs associated with the custodial tasks and operations provided by SEIPTC are paid for by Four Seasons Investment Management and covered in our investment management fee.
A fiduciary is a person or organization that acts on behalf of another person or persons to manage assets. Essentially, a fiduciary owes to that other entity the duties of good faith and trust. The highest legal duty of one party to another, being a fiduciary requires being bound ethically to act in the other's best interests.
A fiduciary might be responsible for general well-being, but often the task involves finances—managing the assets of another person, or of a group of people, for example. Money managers, financial advisors, bankers, accountants, executors, board members, and corporate officers all have fiduciary responsibility.