Understanding Your Complete Financial Picture

In working with you, we seek to understand not just your financial situation and investment objectives, but also your values and aspirations, both for yourself and your family. We are committed to helping you pursue your dreams by providing you with the information and resources you need to make informed decisions about managing your wealth.
 
During our meetings, we sit with you to talk about your life. Perhaps your situation demands an extra measure of financial advice and attention (following a divorce, the loss of a spouse, the sale of a business, or an inheritance). Or maybe you’re financially astute without the time or desire to manage your wealth alone. We ask open-ended questions to get to know you and learn more about your relationships with all of your family members. We ask about your career, when you want to retire and how much money you think you’ll need. Will you be caring for elderly parents? Do you need to put children or grandchildren through college? What type of legacy would you like to leave?  

By the time we get to what’s important to you financially and what you hope to accomplish personally, we already know everything about you. We believe that your wealth management strategy should be evaluated by your progress toward your most cherished goals. 

The process we engage in is not a once in a lifetime event. It’s evolutionary, taking into account ongoing changes in your life, your resources, and any financial decisions you need to consider. Backed by our proactive support staff, we’ll keep you updated on progress being made toward your long-term objectives and key milestones in your life.

Taking the Emotion Out of Investing

Many families look at our team as more than just wealth advisors. They know firsthand that we have the experience and skill to help them preserve and grow significant wealth, across economic cycles, and across generations.

Too often, financial decisions are based on emotion rather than on sound investment principles. Over the past three decades, we have developed a meaningful understanding of the issues that can impact your financial life. When it comes to your money, there is no substitute for a carefully considered, disciplined investment approach grounded in careful research. Our goal is to help you filter out market noise and remain focused on the things you can control, such as the quality and holding period of your investments and the diversification of your portfolio.

By taking a long-term disciplined approach, we can help you ignore short-term market behavior that could distract or derail your financial strategy. We believe that learning from the past helps people avoid making predictable mistakes in the future.

Legacy Planning

How do you want to be remembered by future generations? Perhaps you want to leave a legacy for the people and causes you care about? And what about the financial benefits of legacy planning?

A well-coordinated wealth transfer strategy takes into account what is important to you, whether it be your family, business succession, or an efficient estate tax strategy. Creating an estate plan around your values and aspirations can bring tremendous personal fulfillment, and, with proper planning, help you maximize tax efficiencies and preserve assets for your heirs. Working in conjunction with your estate planning attorney, tax advisor, and Bank of America Private Bank trust and estate planning specialists, we can help you identify strategies that may serve a role in addressing your specific needs, goals, and wishes.

We can aid in facilitating conversations among family members to help turn your wishes into actions. We encourage you to invite your children and grandchildren to join our meetings and introduce them to your values and goals for your legacy. Some of these conversations may include topics such as:

• Wills and your wishes for the distribution of personal possessions, including real estate and other financial asset
• Assisted living choices, end-of-life instructions and wishes
• Philanthropic goals
• Trusts
• Gifting and family partnership
• Insurance

*Merrill Life Agency's California License Number 0522776

Addressing Professionals' Needs

Corporate Executives

As a corporate executive you may have complex financial needs, including unusual wealth concentrations, multiple managed accounts, restricted stock, and more. The RVS Group is well-versed in helping manage complex compensation packages—including company stock options, restricted stock, and nonqualified deferred compensation.

Working in conjunction with your external tax and legal advisors, we can develop a detailed understanding of the constraints and possibilities posed by your situation. We can then design diversification strategies to help mitigate the risk inherent in concentrated positions. These may include such elements as:

• 10b5-1 plans
• 83(b) elections
• Charitable giving
• Derivative overlays
• Hedging strategies

Entrepreneurs

At the RVS Group, we bring the same discipline and dedication to our work for you and your family that you bring to your business. As your company grows and develops, it’s important to stay focused and keep sight of your personal priorities, especially as they change over time. We take an integrated view of all of your resources and pride ourselves on our ability to work seamlessly with your family and circle of advisors, including your accountant, attorney and investment banker, to develop wealth management strategies that support the entire lifecycle of your business. Some of the many ways we can help include:

• Income protection
• Business succession and exit strategies
• Qualified and non-qualified retirement plans
• Buy-sell agreements
• Insurance strategies

*Merrill Life Agency's California License Number 0522776