Independent Wealth Manager – Do You Need One?

As a high net worth investor who has worked incredibly hard all their life to accumulate $5 million to $500 million in liquid assets or simply someone who doesn’t want to lose all their wealth, you probably want your wealth to be handled with the utmost regard and expertise. Despite what many believe, you will not find that regard and expertise at big investment banks or other major financial institutions. What you need is an independent wealth manager who considers you more than just a number and is truly invested in your financial success. Especially if you’re an investor with $10 million or more in liquid assets, finding the right advisor is crucial for your successful wealth management, as you will learn from this guide.

Pillar Wealth Management is a private, white-glove wealth management firm. We offer expert and fiduciary financial services to clients with $5 million to $500 million in liquid assets. Our managers have been working with high net worth individuals and ultra-high net worth families for more than six decades in combined experience. We optimize portfolio strategies and protect your assets to ensure that you are able to meet all your current and long-term financial goals and aspirations in life. Schedule a consultation to start talking about your own goals and targets.

In this blog, we’ll be talking about whether you really need an independent wealth manager, what services they offer, and how to hire one. Let’s get started.

Table of Contents
Independent Wealth Manager , Do You Need One? Independent Wealth Manager Services How to Hire an Independent Wealth Manager? Final Thoughts on Hiring Independent Wealth Manager

Independent Wealth Manager , Do You Need One?

If you started off by managing your wealth and finances yourself, you must realize that wealth management only gets harder as your wealth increases. As high net worth and ultra-high net worth individuals, your financial situation is entirely different from anyone else. You must have diverse assets, various portfolio strategies for financial goals, retirement and estate plans, tax management strategies, and much more.

As you will learn from our book, The Art of Protecting Ultra-High Net Worth Portfolios and Estates – Strategies for Families Worth $25 million to $500 million, you not only have a complicated financial position but also carry a lot of risks and face complex financial challenges. Sure, you won’t run out of money, unlike people who have $10,000, but that’s doesn’t mean you are entirely safe and secure. That’s why your financial matters can not be handled by the average banker or broker.

For starters, they might not even know how to handle all that wealth and assets. Even if they do, they will lack the expertise and prudence necessary to efficiently handle it. That’s why instead of going for big banks, investment houses, or other large financial institutions, you need an independent wealth manager. Here are a few crucial reasons why the high net worth investors need an independent wealth manager.

Customized Financial Services

You might think that the best option for you would be to go to those large financial institutions with big names and trillions of dollars under their management. However, the truth is that if you do go to them, you will just be a number to them. They won’t really care about what you want or aspire for. They will offer you the same cookie-cutter advice and experience that they gave to the number/client that came before you.

They might ask you a few basic questions, such as what your risk tolerance is or what percentage portfolio growth you’re aiming for. However, it won’t really matter because they will pull out the same fixed investment package that they know works for them. They run on fixed policies and procedures and will try to fit you into their fixed ways rather than the other way around.

As a high net worth investor with their own goals and targets and unique financial situation, you need customized financial services that are purely crafted for you. That’s why you need an independent wealth manager. An independent wealth manager will treat you like a high net worth client.

They know that you deserve to be treated with their full attention and dedicated services. That’s why they take the time to understand all your financial needs and goals and really get to know you. Then, based on that, they develop fully personalized financial plans and other services so that they can best serve your personal needs. Get in touch with the independent wealth managers at Pillar Wealth Management to discuss your customized financial solutions.

No Conflict of Interest

Another reason why you need an independent wealth manager is that they don’t have any conflict of interest. Advisors and employees at other major financial institutions will give you advice and recommendations to supposedly improve your financial position.

However, ultimately, they will be more interested in improving the financial position of their company and stakeholders. If a certain decision benefits you but is risky for them, you can expect them to not recommend it. Similarly, if you have two options, for instance, for investing, these advisors will pick the one that is more profitable for them.

An independent wealth manager has no such conflict of interest. They care about your goals and performance more than their own firm or pockets. Therefore, they will optimize your portfolio and follow strategies that benefit you the most.

Focus More Than Just on Investment Management

For independent wealth managers, wealth management is more than just investment management. It is certainly an important aspect of any high net worth individual’s financial plan, but there are various other things to consider as well.

However, brokerage firms and big banks might not agree. They won’t say it outright, but it will be pretty evident in their actions. They will focus entirely on investing your wealth in various securities and products. Their main aim would be to produce high portfolio returns. This isn’t a bad thing on its own, but if it comes at the cost of high taxes and expenses, it’s not in your best interest.

Independent wealth managers believe in building your wealth but also protecting it and preserving your wealth in the long run while achieving your goals and targets. Therefore, along with investment management, they focus on risk management, tax management, cash flow planning, and a lot more. We suggest reading our complete guide on portfolio performance to understand why performance numbers aren’t everything.

Understand How Financial Decisions Really Affect You

As mentioned earlier, big financial institutions are more concerned about their own interests and less concerned with your financial needs and goals in life. That’s why they don’t really understand or care about how various financial decisions affect you. For instance, they will adopt an active money management style and bet against the market to produce high short-term returns.

However, they won’t care about the excessive taxes on short-term capital gains you’ll have to bear or the high transaction costs that will eat away at your wealth. Adopting the right money management style is just one of the shifts you must consider. For more information on critical shifts, read our handy guide on portfolio growth strategies.

In comparison, independent wealth managers understand what’s truly at stake and how each financial decision really affects you. They are focused on helping you get closer to your goals and, therefore, are mindful of anything that slows you down.

These managers know about the various hidden costs that can pop-up, and therefore, they optimize your portfolios in a way that reduces these expenses and maximizes portfolio growth for long-term growth and performance. Read more about how these hidden costs can affect investors worth $10 million or more from our guide on choosing a financial advisor.

Independent Wealth Manager Services

Wealth management is a comprehensive and holistic financial service that considers all aspects of an individual’s wealth and finances. It aims to build your wealth while considering all your financial goals and other targets in life. It focuses on your current as well as long-term goals.

Accordingly, it includes various services to tackle the complex needs of high net worth individuals and families. Some of these services offered by independent wealth managers include:

-Comprehensive financial planning

-Investment management

-Risk management

-Retirement planning

-Estate planning

-Tax management

-General financial advice

-Debt management

-Legal assistance

-Cash flow planning

How to Hire an Independent Wealth Manager?

There are many wealth managers out there, but you need to find the right one for yourself if you want to achieve all your short-term and long-term financial goals. Here are a few things you need to consider when hiring an independent wealth manager.

For a more detailed version, you can go through our guide on choosing a financial advisor for families worth $5 million to $500 million.

Credentials and Accreditations

Always do a thorough background check of the wealth managers to make sure that they have all the right credentials, accreditations, certifications, etc. This ensures that they actually know what they are doing and are licensed to offer the services they are offering. Moreover, this can also let you know how knowledgeable the wealth manager is. This is quite important as wealth management in particular covers various financial services, and it’s important for the wealth manager to have in-depth knowledge about all of them.

Experience

Experience is another strong indicator of how good a wealth manager is. When it comes to entrusting someone with the management of your wealth, would you prefer someone who’s just entered the industry and is still practicing or someone who has decades of experience in working with affluent clients and offering wealth management services? We’re sure it’s the latter.

Independent wealth managers at Pillar Wealth Management have a combined experience of more than 60 years. Start chatting with us today to discuss your wealth management needs.

Clientele

You should stick to wealth managers who exclusively work with high net worth and ultra-high net worth clients. This set of affluent clients demand complex services, a high level of expertise, and extensive knowledge about the market trends and industry. Therefore, consider the kind of clientele the wealth managers are normally catering to when hiring a wealth manager.

Standard of Care

As mentioned previously, you want wealth managers or advisors that have no conflict of interest. One way to ensure this is to see their standard of care. Some advisors hold themselves to the fiduciary standard, while some follow the more relaxed, suitability standard of care.

Advisors who hold themselves to the suitability standard don’t necessarily have to recommend products and securities that are best for you. Comparatively, fiduciary advisors like wealth managers have no conflict of interest and are committed to providing services that are in your best interest.

Personalized Services

Personalized services are extremely important for high net worth individuals. Only through personalized services that are crafted specifically with their unique financial situation and goals in mind can high net worth individuals hope to meet their financial goals and targets as soon as possible.

Final Thoughts on Hiring Independent Wealth Manager

High net worth investors have a complicated financial position that requires complex and customized financial services to allow them to meet their goals and attain prosperity and serenity. However, this is not possible to do on their own or through the cookie-cutter services offered at most major financial institutions. They require an independent wealth manager who is as invested in their financial success as themselves.

Pillar Wealth Management is a private wealth management firm that caters exclusively to high net worth as well as ultra-high net worth clients. We provide a broad and comprehensive range of investment, financial and advisory services, such as investment management, risk management, tax management and more. Our independent wealth managers hold more than three decades of experience working with affluent clients and gearing them for financial success through our in-depth knowledge, expertise and tailored financial solutions. Schedule a free consultation with us today.

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