Why Atlantic Capital Investments, LLC? - Continue

Perhaps the best place to begin in the investment adviser selection process is to understand how different advisers are paid.

“Fee-only” financial planners (advisers) such as Atlantic Capital Investments, LLC (ACI) do not get paid by trading commissions or by the products they recommend:

  • Fee-only advisers charge a set fee such as a percentage of assets under management or a fixed rate.
  • Therefore, there is no incentive to increase revenue through excessive trading or by recommending certain funds over others.
  • Because of this fee-only structure, advisers such as ACI can keep clients’ best interests at heart by providing truly un-biased advice while offering a broad selection of “best of class” investments.

Other advisers, such as stockbrokers, bankers, and insurance agents typically do not charge a “fee” for their services but generate income by “selling products:”

  • Stockbrokers generate their income by means of commissions, which are generated each time they make an investment transaction.
  • Brokerage firms collect millions annually for promoting their own (proprietary) mutual funds or funds from companies that pay them off.
  • In the worst case scenario, the stockbroker, banker, or insurance agent is driven primarily by the sales process while investment “advice” becomes nothing more than window dressing to attract clients for the real money-making business of selling products.

Perhaps the most significant, yet the least known difference between fee-only advisers and commission-based advisers is not how they are paid but the level of responsibility they have to their clients’ best interests:

Fee-only advisers such as Atlantic Capital Investments, LLC (ACI) have both a suitability standard and a fiduciary standard of responsibility, which places the investor’s interests ahead of their own:

  • The fiduciary standard of conduct is one that is demonstrated through a prudent, sound process through which investment decisions are made, rather than by showing that investment products are chosen because they are “suitable.”
  • Fiduciaries have a legal requirement to act in accordance with applicable laws and are ultimately personally liable for their decisions.
  • This high standard of conduct provides a direct benefit to the investor. Therefore, it is in the investor’s best interest to hire an adviser with this fiduciary level of responsibility.

In contrast, Stockbrokers, bankers, and insurance agents only have a “suitability” standard with regard to the investments they “recommend.”

  • This type of adviser has no fiduciary duty to the investor.
  • As a result, the quality of the investments may be a secondary concern or, in the worst case scenario, not even a consideration at all.
  • This standard of conduct may or may not provide a direct benefit to the investor.

So now that you understand that choosing a “fee-only” adviser can be in your best interest as an investor, what makes ACI a better choice than other fee-only advisers?

Atlantic Capital Investments, LLC is an “independent” fee-only adviser. An independent adviser is beneficial to its clients because they own their own business. Since the independent adviser’s personal pride, name, and reputation are at stake, they are more likely to provide a higher level of client-centered service and are less likely to be viewed as product pushers. They also intimately understand the needs and concerns of other individual investors and small business owners such as themselves. Furthermore, the independent adviser truly values and understands the importance of building long-term relationships.

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