Urban Financial Advisory Corporation (UFAC) was founded in 1990 by the current firm president
and sole shareholder, Steven D. Urban. Please see the Brochure Supplement for more information
regarding Mr. Urban and other associates within the firm. UFAC is an independent financial planning
and investment advisory firm located in Chicago, Illinois. In the following description of our
advisory business, “we” or “our” will refer to UFAC and “you” or “your” will refer to our existing or
prospective clients.
We believe the best way to provide an understanding of our advisory business is to describe the
process we generally engage in with one of our typical clients. Although we consider ourselves an
investment advisory firm, commonly, we would begin to work with you by providing some level of
financial planning services. Depending on one’s particular circumstances, initial financial planning
does not necessarily have to be the starting point, but it is usually mutually determined to be
appropriate. Financial planning services are quite distinct from investment advisory services, but we
believe them to be so integral to the delivery of the latter that they require further explanation.
The financial planning process would be described to you initially in a written proposal. The financial
planning process involves gathering financial information from you and discussing with you your
goals and objectives. Often, there is a major financial event triggering the need for the planning
such as retirement or an inheritance, but sometimes it could be for no other reason than that no
significant planning has ever or recently been done. With the financial data provided, we create
personalized financial projections consisting of cash flow and account, and asset values. We have
found that a comprehensive and consultative review of these projections is the most effective means
of identifying, prioritizing and understanding a host of financial planning issues.
Further, we believe that investment policy can best be formulated as a result of thorough review of
the financial projections. Investment policy is comprised of the standards and rules you establish for
the investment and ongoing management of your portfolio. Your portfolio is comprised of the various
types of financial accounts you may have.
Therefore, as part of the financial planning review, we will also suggest and explain to you an
investment policy for your portfolio. We would generally conclude the planning process by providing
to you a written summary of conclusion and recommendations. The summary would reiterate the
rationale underlying the investment policy suggested during the
planning session(s). Also, the
summary would be considered the end of the planning portion of the engagement and an invoice
per the estimate provided in the original proposal would be included.
At this point, you would be free to implement the investment policy suggested on your own, direct
and monitor another in doing so or to continue to evaluate alternative approaches. There would be
no commitment or requirement to retain us to implement or monitor the investment policy
suggested. However, our general experience has been that many individuals interested in utilizing
the investment policy suggested will contract with us for such services.
Should you determine to utilize our firm for investment advisory services, we would generally
provide to you an investment policy statement which would reiterate the policy suggested during the
planning. You would also be provided an investment advisory contract, which would spell out the
rights and duties of our relationship. Upon execution of these documents, you would establish
accounts over, which we would have a limited trading authorization (For more information on
brokerage accounts, please see Item 12, Brokerage Practices). When accounts are funded, we would
then engage in deployment of the funds within the accounts of the portfolio pursuant to the terms of
the investment policy (For specifics on many of the aspects of ongoing portfolio management, please
see Item 8, Methods of Analysis, Strategies and Risk of Loss). In general, our firm does not limit its
advice to any specific type of investment.
Each quarter, most clients would be provided a detailed performance report for their portfolio.
The report would explain in detail the performance of the overall portfolio as well as its specific
components. It also would generally discuss the economic environment as well as provide a
detailed explanation of any anticipated changes within the portfolio during the current period. In
addition to performance reporting, we consider these quarterly performance reports as ongoing
updates to the investment policy statement.
Our firm has utilized this approach toward the delivery of financial planning and investment advisory
services since its inception. As of June 30, 2023, UFAC manages investment advisory client assets
in the amount of $1,021,100,405. Of this amount, $997,075,474 is managed on a discretionary basis
pursuant to an agreed upon investment policy, and $24,024,931 is managed on a non-discretionary
basis, throughout approximately 238 portfolios. The balance of funds is maintained for our clients on
a non-discretionary basis.