Frequently Asked Questions
How long have you been in business?
Our principal, Tony Krvaric was initially licensed as a financial professional in 1998 and brings 27+ years of experience and accumulated wisdom to his clients' benefit. He's been through multiple market cycles and brings a complementary team of professionals to client relationships.
Whom do you serve?
Our clients are motivated, enjoy making smart financial choices, appreciate professional relationships, and generally fall into one of three categories:
- Pre-retirees and business owners preparing for retirement
- Retirees making sure their financial affairs are in order
- Widows looking for an experienced advisor to provide confidence
Where are you located?
We are located in beautiful San Diego, California. Specifically, our main offices are located Rancho Bernardo. We also have a presence in Newport Beach, California and Scottsdale, Arizona. We serve clients in over a dozen states.
What is the initial meeting experience like?
Our first meeting is solely to determine if there is a fit for us to work together - without judgement or obligation. The first part of the meeting you will share what you are looking for and what your expectations are. In the second part, we will explain our philosophy, fees, and expectations. If we are a match, great. If we are not a match, we may be able to point you in a more suitable direction. Sharing financial information at this initial stage is limited to discussing big picture assets and liabilities - not exact details or statements.
Do you have account minimums for client relationships?
Our Assets Under Advisement (AUA) minimum is $500,000 per family. While we want to help as many Americans as possible, economic realities are such that we cannot serve everyone. Note: Account minimums are not enforced clients or children or grandchildren of existing clients. Our obligation to serve rests with the entire family.
How are your fees structured?
Our fees start at 1.50% per year for between $500,000 and $1,000,000 of Assets Under Advisement and go as low as 0.50%. Fees are billed quarterly. Real estate, personal or for investment, is generally not considered as Assets Under Advisement. There is an optional flat fee of 0.35% for clients who wish for us to also manage their investment portfolio. This would include portfolio implementation, monitoring, custody, trading costs, cost basis tracking, online portal, performance reporting, tax reporting and in-house portfolio managers.
What do I get for the fee that I pay?
For starters you get a personal relationship, in an increasingly impersonal, automated world. We learn about your goals, help determine what is realistic, challenge you where appropriate, educate you, help you manage, preserve, and eventually distribute your wealth. We also identify blind spots that may jeopardize you or your loved ones financially. Not only is the financial landscape enormous but there is also so much noise and bad information out there. Not to mention scams galore. We help you focus, cut through the noise, and gain confidence from knowing that you have an experienced financial professional in your corner.
Do you charge commissions?
While most of our relationships are fee-based, there are circumstances where a commission-based solution either is a better fit or a solution only exists in a commission structure. We are committed to the best strategy for each client relationship and individual circumstance, always clearly explaining the pros and cons.
Why do I need a financial advisor in the first place?
That's the age-old question. Information these days is free and readily available. Knowledge can be gained, given enough time and interest. Wisdom, however, comes only after decades of experience - which includes making lots of mistakes along the way. Emotions like greed and fear drive human beings to making the wrong decision, at the wrong time, for the wrong reasons. Our clients share their values and goals with us, and we help them make smart, aligned choices, adjusting along the way as circumstances and goals change over time. Our clients feel the coaching and confidence is more than worth it.
You talk about "The Five F's" in life. Explain?
Ultimately, our time on earth is short. There is only so much time each and every one of us has. The Five F's are: Faith, Family, Friends, Fitness, and Finances. Partnering with an experienced professional on Finances allows for more precious time and mental bandwidth to be allocated to the other four F's: Faith, Family, Friends, and Fitness. Finances can be outsourced. The other four F's cannot. In fact, they are the essence of a good and healthy life. How will you allocate your time?
What are these "Buckets" of which you speak?
The Bucket Strategy®, pioneered over 30 years ago, is based on an institutional-level approach to investing called Liability-driven Investing (LDI) which seeks to align the cash flows generated by assets with the cash flows needed for liabilities. If that was clear as mud, an easier way to think about it is dividing money into time-segmented "buckets", matching the time horizon to the need. I.e. Bucket 1 will contain enough assets, appropriately invested, to cover needs for the next 5-7 years. Bucket 2 will do the same to cover needs for the following 5-8 years. And Bucket 3 will be invested to cover needs 10-15 years from now. Based on preference and circumstances, we can also employ two additional, optional buckets; Protected Income and Alternatives. There are many benefits of this approach, but an overriding one is the confidence it provides for investors in their 'drawing income from my portfolio' phase of their lives by avoiding Sequence of Returns Risk.
OK, you got me. What's Sequence of Returns Risk?
In short, the order of rates of return over a, say 15-year period, doesn't matter in the accumulation stage of lives. I.e. if we have a stretch of good years in the beginning and a bad stretch towards the end, or the same rates of returns are inverted so that the bad stretch comes first and the good stretch at the end, the end result will be there same. That is NOT the case for a portfolio where we are making withdrawals. Starting out with a bad stretch of annual returns when also drawing income can be devastating for the value of a portfolio. The math is brutal, and the mental stress is immense. We seek to spare our clients from running out of money in retirement and the stress and anguish that poor market performance inevitably brings. The Bucket Strategy works.
Enough with the serious stuff. What's something interesting about this Tony fellow?
Our founder, Tony Krvaric, was born and raised in Sweden and came to America after being inspired by then-president Ronald Reagan. He is a proud catholic, husband and father, and American. He loves electronic music, watching baseball (go Padres!), and advancing traditional, conservative values. He loves helping families put their financial house in order, likening it to an interior decorator who walks into a house and sees opportunities for improvement that those who lived there decades are just too close to see on their own.
In his mid-50's, God willing he has 20+ more years of doing what he loves. Happily married, he enjoys traveling to his native Sweden and helping his four children with "adulting". He loves America with all his heart, has strong opinions but is respectful to all, and truly enjoys building relationships. His rolodex (do young people even get this reference anymore), built over nearly 3 decades, is likely unmatched in Southern California and definitely so in San Diego County. And while kids call him a "Boomer", he is actually technically "Gen-X" - and proudly so.
Tony's three favorite movies are Wargames, Red Dawn, and the Lord of the Rings trilogy. As far as books, he really only devours anything financial- or management-related. His favorite audiobook is the original BBC radio broadcast reading of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, originally published as a six-CD set, relistening to it at least once per year. His wife tells him he's "stuck in the 80's". Hey, if he couldn't be there for the 60's, which seemed pretty dang cool, the 80's were pretty awesome as well.