Context and Coordination for Entrepreneurs

We advise entrepreneurs and business owners at multiple points in their professional lifecycles. Some are actively building their businesses, others anticipate liquidity events, and still others have recently sold or transferred their businesses.  We understand the demands and challenges that entrepreneurs face for their time and attention. Our value lies in making their lives easier and simpler – prioritizing the issues they need to tackle, streamlining their decision points, and allowing them to focus on their most important financial asset: their businesses.

We connect clients to an extensive range of resources and opportunities across Merrill and provide access to the banking convenience of Bank of America, directing cohesive strategies and tactics across multiple lines of business:

• Business succession and transfer strategies
• Tax-sensitive wealth planning initiatives*
• Access to cash management and custom lending through Bank of America, N.A.
• Corporate retirement programs
• Business valuation strategies
• Key man and other insurance strategies

Merrill, its affiliates, and financial advisors do not provide legal, tax, or accounting advice. You should consult your legal and/or tax advisors before making any financial decisions.

Merrill Life Agency's California License Number 0522776

Meaningful Direction for Family Wealth

We’ve been privileged to work with multiple generations of families for many years. Each family is unique, with its own interests, concerns, and long-term aspirations. Our outreach is firmly grounded in the distinctive circumstances of each relationship. We begin with discovery—discussing a family’s preferences, risk tolerance, cash-flow needs, spending habits, charitable inclinations, and wealth transfer objectives. We then synthesize this information into cohesive and workable strategies that seek to advance a family’s long-term objectives. Planning is the foundation of our work, laying the groundwork for purposeful initiatives:

• Investment Management
• Trust and Estate Planning Services
• Healthcare and Insurance Strategies
• Education Funding
• Banking and Lending Services through Bank of America, N.A.

*Merrill Life Agency's California License Number 0522776 

Controlling the Controllable

There are many uncertainties in life and in the financial markets. As advisors, we believe in controlling the controllable to enhance the well-being of our clients. We are fee- and tax-sensitive, designing portfolios that reflect each client’s preferences, risk parameters, and timelines. We believe strongly in diversification, harnessing a range of asset classes and instruments, including ETFs, fixed income investments, alternative investments, socially conscious investments, and other investment vehicles, as appropriate.

We also look to connect clients to the best resources at their disposal. We’re experienced in identifying and leveraging talent, wherever it is housed. We work closely with a client’s external tax and legal advisors, maintaining regular communication and active collaboration. We also rely on an extensive network of in-house specialists at Merrill Lynch Wealth Management and access to the banking convenience of Bank of America, facilitating singular approaches to the opportunities and challenges that significant wealth can entail.

*Some or all alternative investment programs may not be in the best interest of certain investors. No assurance can be given that any alternative investment’s investment objectives will be achieved.

*Impact investing and/or Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) managers may take into consideration factors beyond traditional financial information to select securities, which could result in relative investment performance deviating from other strategies or broad market benchmarks, depending on whether such sectors or investments are in or out of favor in the market. Further, ESG strategies may rely on certain values based criteria to eliminate exposures found in similar strategies or broad market benchmarks, which could also result in relative investment performance deviating.