Jim Black originally formed his investment firm in 2003, and subsequently founded his current
firm, now known as The Retirement Solution LLC. (“TRS”) in 2007 and registered with the
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) the same year. In 2011, TRS moved from
SEC registration and became a state registered investment advisor. In 2018, TRS
converted back to SEC registration. TRS is owned by Sivako LLC and Sivalko LLC is
owned by Jim Black.
TRS provides comprehensive financial planning, investment management, and insurance
assessments to individuals, pension and profit-sharing plans, trusts, estates, charitable
organizations, corporations, and other business entities. Advice is provided through
consultation with the client and might include income planning, portfolio analysis and
design, tax planning, asset protection, education planning, retirement planning, and estate
planning.
The client may, but not always, be provided with an evaluation of the client’s initial situation,
often in the form of a statement or risk analysis. Periodic reviews are also communicated
to provide reminders of the specific courses of action that TRS recommends to be taken.
More frequent reviews may occur but are not necessarily communicated to the client unless
immediate changes are recommended.
Other professionals (e.g., lawyers, accountants, insurance agents, etc.) are mostly
engaged directly by the client on an as-needed basis. TRS may cover the cost of specific
services of professionals as identified in the client’s agreement with TRS, depending on
the services under which the client engages TRS. TRS, its representatives or any of its
employees, will disclose to the client any material conflicts of interest.
Types of advisory services
TRS provides the following services to advisory clients:
FINANCIAL PLANNING AND CONSULTING
Financial planning is offered to all clients. Clients that choose to complete the financial
planning process are provided a written plan that includes a personal balance sheet and
projections.
Initial consultations are provided at no charge. Advice pertaining to the design and
establishment of a written retirement income plan, portfolio analysis and design, asset
protection plan, tax- planning analysis, and/or estate plan, depends on the specifics of each
client’s circumstances.
The following are the financial planning services and basic description of what each service
includes. The exact services for each type of planning may vary from client to client and
are available to all clients for a negotiable fixed fee. Not all clients receive all services. The
following services are available to all clients:
INCOME PLANNING
Income/Lifestyle
Help determine when you can retire, and how much income you can spend each month
for the rest of your life.
Social Security
Help determine the most opportune time to start your benefits to maximize payouts over
the course of your life.
Pension Analysis
Help determine the best options for your payouts and stabilize distributions throughout
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your life that are best suited for you and your family.
Survivor’s Income
Help determine how income will change at the passing of the first spouse, and if that
amount of income is enough to maintain the lifestyle of the surviving spouse.
PORTFOLIO ANALYSIS AND DESIGN
Review of Existing Portfolio
Determine if you are on a course to meet your goals or whether you need to change
your strategy. The objective is to catch mistakes and make corrections on a timely
basis, with the ultimate goal of obtaining your best possible results. The amount of risk
assumed by a client to achieve the desired investment return is also assessed.
Fee Review
A breakdown of what you are paying in fees and commissions today, and what you can
do to reduce or take control of what you pay.
Portfolio Design
Determining an asset allocation that reflects your objectives and best conforms to your
personal investment goals, strategies, and risk tolerance.
TAX OPTIMIZATION
Optimize Retirement Accounts
Identify ways to reduce taxes on distribution from retirement accounts to maximize
income.
Strategize Capital Gains/Losses
Determine strategizing opportunities to minimize capital gains from other sources using
“tax-loss” selling, if available.
ASSET PROTECTION
Life Insurance
Prepare analysis to determine if you need life insurance in retirement (most people
don’t).
Long-Term Care Options
Determine if you should purchase a long-term care policy or self-insure by discussing
the advantages and disadvantages of both.
All reports, financial statement projections, and analyses are intended exclusively for
client’s use in developing and implementing their financial plan. In view of this limited
purpose, the statements should not be considered complete financial statements.
Accordingly, the client should understand that such statements cannot be used to obtain
credit or for any purpose other than developing their personal financial plan. TRS will not
audit (examine), review or compile such statements and, accordingly, TRS will not express
an opinion or other form of assurance on them, including the reasonableness of
assumptions and other data on which any prospective financial statements are based.
TRS’s analysis will be highly dependent on certain economic assumptions the client must
make about the future. Therefore, another important step in the process is establishing the
client’s familiarity with historical data regarding key assumptions such as inflation and
investment rates of return, as well as an understanding of how significantly these
assumptions affect the results of the analysis. TRS may counsel you as to the consistency
of your assumptions with relevant historical data but will not express any assurance as to
the accuracy or reasonableness of client’s specific data and assumptions. Past
performance is no guarantee of future results.
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All financial planning engagements are executed on a fixed fee basis. Fees for ongoing
services after initial consultation and planning are based on a separately executed
Financial Planning Agreement (“The Retirement Club Agreement”) that details the services
that will be rendered, and the cost associated with those services. Additional information
is also available in Item 5 of this document.
ASSET MANAGEMENT
TRS offers both discretionary direct and non-discretionary asset management services to
advisory clients. TRS offers clients ongoing portfolio management services after
determining the client’s individual investment goals, time horizons, objectives, and risk
tolerance. Investment strategies, investment selection, asset allocations, portfolio
monitoring, and the overall investment program will be based on those factors listed above.
For clients who wish to engage TRS on a discretionary basis, the client will provide TRS
with discretionary authority to execute selected investment program transactions as stated
within the Investment Advisory Agreement. For clients who wish to engage TRS on a non-
discretionary basis, TRS will provide asset management services to the client as outlined
in the Investment Advisory Agreement.
The client is responsible for all transaction and exchange costs associated with the
portfolio. These individually managed portfolios typically include equity, fixed income, cash,
and non- traditional investment products as investments. Assets are managed using
different models or standardized investment portfolios. The models used by TRS are
adjusted within a portfolio based on the individual client’s needs and objectives. Client assets
are placed into a model using multiple investments funds.
NEWSLETTERS
TRS periodically provides clients with newsletters distributed via email.
Client tailored services and client-imposed restrictions
The goals and objectives for each client are documented in TRS’s client files. Investment
strategies are created that reflect the stated goals and objective. While TRS attempts to
accommodate all of a client’s needs, in certain cases TRS may not be able to
accommodate certain restrictions.
Agreements may not be assigned without the prior written consent of the client.
Subadviser Services
For clients with assets on TRS’s custodial platform, the following, will apply: TRS may also
act as a subadviser to advisers AE Wealth Management (“AEWM”), a registered investment
advisor who is not affiliated with TRS. This relationship will be memorialized in each
contract between TRS and AEWM. There will be a fee charged by AEWM of 10bps to cover
their platform fee, TRS is not involved with this fee nor will TRS receive any of the platform
fee.
Wrap fee programs
TRS does not participate in wrap fee programs.
Client assets under management
As of December 2023, TRS has approximately $475,260,153 of discretionary assets under
management.
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