Our Owners and Principals
We are a Michigan limited liability company established in May 2004. Richard Balamucki owns
twenty-five percent (25%) or more of our firm’s membership interests. Mark Fitzgerald and
Logan Ross each own ten percent (10%).
Our Advisory Services
We offer our clients a variety of advisory services including financial planning and investment
management. Our financial planning services are included at no extra charge for our investment
management clients.
Financial Planning Services
We offer clients a diverse menu of financial planning services including:
Education Planning;
Estate Planning;
Tax Planning;
Investment Planning;
Risk Management (insurance);
Retirement Planning;
Cash flow planning; and
Other investment and non-investment related matters.
We consult with you to discuss your goals, objectives, risk tolerance, and any special or particular
circumstance unique to the client. After analyzing your individual circumstances, objectives, and
risk profile, we present our recommendations to you. When we provide financial planning
services, we will rely on the information you provide to us. We will not verify this information
when preparing our recommendations. We make our recommendations to you both orally and in
a written form.
Our recommendations may include topics related to those listed above. To implement our advice,
we may also recommend that you work with us or other professionals, such as attorneys or
accountants, or utilize various financial products, such as insurance or securities, to implement
our recommendations and to obtain your financial goals. While recommending our own services
may present a conflict of interest, you are under no obligation to act upon any of our
recommendations and you are not required to engage the services of any recommended
professional, including us as an investment manager. You retain absolute discretion over all
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financial planning implementation decisions and may accept or reject any of our recommendations.
We only offer our investment management service through our Discretionary Investment
Management Agreement.
Our financial planning services are included at no extra charge for our investment management
clients. If you would like us to provide financial planning services as a stand-alone service, we
enter into a Financial Planning Agreement with you setting forth the terms and conditions of our
engagement, describing the scope of our services to be provided, and our fee.
Investment Management Services
At the onset of our relationship, you will execute a Discretionary Investment Management
Agreement with us setting forth the terms and conditions of our management of your investments.
Also, together we will complete a Risk Tolerance Assessment; discuss your financial needs,
investment objectives, time horizon, as well as any other factors that are relevant to your specific
financial situation and any other supporting documentation required for our services. The Risk
Tolerance Assessment (and other information obtained during the initial phase of the financial
planning engagement, when applicable) enables us to design a tailored portfolio for you that
meets your investment objectives, risk tolerance and investment time horizon. Prior to
implementing the portfolio, we construct a written Investment Policy Statement that is signed by
both you and your adviser.
We do not act as the custodian for your account. We utilize Fidelity Brokerage Services, LLC as
the custodian for accounts under our management. You must enter into an account agreement
with Fidelity, under which Fidelity will take and maintain custody of your assets, effect security
transactions, and provide confirmations of transactions executed for your account and periodic
account statements. Once you have opened a securities brokerage account with Fidelity and
deposited assets designated for our management into your account, we can begin investing your
assets pursuant to your Investment Policy Statement, our written agreement, and any other
limitations you established in writing.
After analyzing your Risk Tolerance Assessment, current financial situation, and other stated
objectives and considerations, our investment adviser representatives assist you in developing an
appropriate investment strategy for investing the assets in your account. We tailor your
investment portfolio based on one of our model portfolios and allocate your assets among various
securities within the asset classes of the model portfolio. Once your investment portfolio is
established, our investment adviser representatives monitor, review, and rebalance your account,
as necessary.
We begin with target portfolios, ranging from 100% equities to 100% fixed income securities.
Generally, the asset classes in the portfolios are funded with open-end mutual funds and
exchange-traded funds, also known as ETFs. Clients may request that we utilize other types of
investments such as bonds, treasury bills and/or CDs. We maintain a recommended list of
securities for each asset class held in the model portfolios, and our investment adviser
representatives generally do not purchase securities that are not on this approved list. We monitor
and review the securities on the recommended list and make changes when appropriate. We tailor
your portfolio by choosing securities from this list to fill each asset class of the portfolio model
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that supports your investment strategy. We may hold securities not on the preferred list due to
client legacy positions, tax considerations, client demands and restrictions, or other reasons.
We may, in our sole discretion, allow you to transfer individual equities you currently own into an
account we manage. If we allow the transfer, we determine what asset class the equities represent
and adjust the portfolio accordingly. If we decide that these securities cannot be held in the
account we manage, we will liquidate the securities and allocate the assets appropriately.
Investment Management to Retirement Investors
We have special and additional fiduciary responsibilities under the Title I of Employee
Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (“ERISA”) and/or the Internal Revenue Code Section
4975 (“IRC 4975”), as applicable, when we provide investment advice or investment
management services to individual retirement account owners, ERISA plans, and ERISA plan
participants. As such, we are subject to specific duties and obligations that include, among other
things, prohibited transaction rules which are intended to prohibit fiduciaries from acting on
conflicts of interest. We must either avoid or eliminate the conflict or rely upon a prohibited
transaction exemption.
We are a fiduciary, when, for example, our investment advisor representatives
recommend a
distribution or transfer (a “rollover”) of your tax-qualified ERISA-governed account including an
IRA, to us for management. If you accept the recommendation, we will receive compensation that
we would not otherwise receive. Therefore, the recommendation creates a conflict of interest. To
address this conflict, we must comply with the impartial conduct standards that require us to:
Always act in your best interest by:
oMeeting a professional standard of care when making investment
recommendations (give prudent advice);
oNever putting our financial interests ahead of yours when making
recommendations (give loyal advice);
Avoid misleading statements about conflicts of interest, fees, and investments;
Follow policies and procedures designed to ensure that we give advice that is in
your best interest;
Charge no more than is reasonable for our services; and
Give you basic information about conflicts of interest.
A retirement investor leaving an employer has four options regarding an existing retirement plan
(and under certain circumstances may engage in a combination of the following options). We will
provide general education, for discussion purposes, regarding the “pros and cons” to each of these
choices: (i) leave the money in the former employer’s plan, if permitted, (ii) roll over the assets to
the new employer’s plan, if one is available and rollovers are permitted, (iii) roll over to an IRA,
or (iv) cash out the account value (which could, depending upon the client’s age, result in adverse
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tax consequences). If we recommend a roll over from a retirement plan account or a transfer of an
IRA account into an account to be managed by us, such a recommendation creates a conflict of
interest if the retirement investor accepts the recommendation as we earn a fee on the market
value of the rollover or transferred IRA which would not be earned if the money was not placed
under our management.
Alternative Investments
Separately Managed Accounts
We have established a relationship with an “Independent Manager” to provide tax-advantaged
strategies to our clients through separately managed accounts (“SMAs”). These strategies
implement a tax-loss harvesting process so that realized capital losses can be used to offset capital
gains, reducing taxes paid, and enhancing after-tax returns. If we recommend SMAs to you, we
will act as your primary adviser to determine the appropriateness or suitability of this service.
Currently, if you choose to utilize SMAs of the Independent Manager, you will execute a separate
discretionary advisory agreement with the Independent Manager and receive a copy of the
Independent Manager’s Form ADV. The Independent Manager is responsible for selecting and
executing transaction on a discretionary basis in compliance with your SMA’s investment
guidelines that you establish. Please review the Independent Manager’s Form ADV carefully for
essential information related to their business, fees, and methods of operation.
We anticipate establishing a subadvisory arrangement with the Independent Manager for these
SMA services. When the subadvisory arrangement is established, clients will no longer be
required to enter into a separate discretionary advisory agreement with the Independent Manager.
Instead, these services will be implemented, on a discretionary basis, pursuant to your Investment
Policy Statement, our written agreement, and any other limitations you established in writing with
us.
Private Equity Investments
As noted above, we have established a relationship with an Independent Manager which we
recommend, on a non-discretionary basis, to clients who may be interested in purchasing
membership interests, limited partnership interests, shares, units, or other applicable interest in
one or more private equity investment (“PEI”). These “interests” are only made available to our
clients who are “accredited investors” within the meaning of section (a) of Rule 501 of Regulation
D under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended and, if required under the fund’s offering
documents, “qualified purchasers” within the meaning of Section 2(a)(51) of the U.S. Investment
Company Act of 1940, as amended, and the rule thereunder. If you qualify for and we
recommend a PEI to you, you will receive the PEI’s offering, governing and subscription
documents. These documents explain the investment strategy, fees, and risks associated with the
specific investment. PEIs are designed to assist clients in creating a diversified portfolio and may
provide unique advantages; however, they are complex in nature, have limited liquidity, and
involve a higher degree of risk. You will be incurring fees as described in the subscription
documents which is separate from and in addition to our investment management fee.
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Other Alternative Investments
Our clients occasionally ask us to review potential illiquid alternative investments that have been
offered to them from third parties. In these circumstances, we will advise our clients on how that
particular investment opportunity fits into their comprehensive plan. We may give advice on
how to title the investment, how the investment fits within the client’s estate plan, and how that
investment would fit into the client’s total net worth and overall asset allocation. If the client
requests, we may occasionally review offering memoranda, financial statements, and other
documents. However, we do not review these documents in a legal capacity nor conduct any
formal due diligence review. Furthermore, we do not make specific recommendations on
whether the client should invest in any particular illiquid alternative investment. That decision
rests solely with the client. Finally, we do not receive any compensation with respect to assisting
our clients in this regard.
Non-Managed Courtesy Account Services
When a client has a significant liquidity event such as a sale of a house, business or another asset,
many times, in this circumstance, the client wants to stay liquid for capital gains, personal goals
or dollar cost averaging purposes. At your request we will set up a separate account at Fidelity for
the sole purpose of holding these proceeds in the cash equivalents of your choosing. (ex., MMF’s,
CD’s, Treasury Bills, etc.) Such accounts are referred to as Non-Managed Courtesy Accounts. We
will not direct the investment or reinvestment of the assets in your account, nor exercise any
discretion on the account. Any trades we place in the account will be solely on a non-
discretionary basis, as requested by you. As these accounts are not under our management, the
accounts will not be subject to our asset-based fee.
Assets Under Management
As of December 31, 2023, we had $699,717,426 in client assets managed on a discretionary basis.