Vasyl Soloshchuk
Halbert Hargrove Global Advisors is a wealth management firm that has served multiple generations of families since 1933. Its advisory and fiduciary investment services are tailor-designed to grow the wealth of its clients through smart practices, preferred investment vehicles, and proven investment strategies. Halbert currently operates out of eight offices across the United States, has $2.5 billion assets under management, and serves 600 clients as of December 31, 2017.
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| Shane Cummings, Director of Operations at Halbert Hargrove |
I sat down with Shane Cummings, Director of Operations at Halbert Hargrove, to see how a company that recently celebrated its 85th anniversary has managed to stay relevant, and, beyond that, how it has kept up with tech innovations over the years.
Shane Cummings started his career at Halbert Hargrove straight out of college and has been with the firm for 13 years. The company culture and internal training are set up in such a way that the firm is able to find the right people that are the best cultural fit. Shane started on the operations side, doing daily transaction posting working with portfolio management systems, and eventually worked as a financial analyst. In this role, he became involved in trading and got to experience the technology. Currently, he is responsible for keeping up to date with industry trends and identifying newer technologies.
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| Vincent Birardi, Nick Strain, Brian Spinelli, Shane Cummings |
Halbert Hargrove’s success story
Shane described Halbert Hargrove clients as “quietly wealthy.” He said these are the type of people who have worked hard and diligently saved money over time. In turn, the firm’s job is to come up with a set of goals to grow that wealth through smart financial planning, something Halbert Hargrove considers its core culture.
“We’ve been doing this since 1933 so we have a long history of working with clients. We’re concentrated on doing the best for our clients.”
Today, approximately 25 advisors help clients achieve their goals. Overall, the company has 44 employees. Over the past few years, the company has expanded by bringing on fresh talent.
Client journey
Shane said that advisors spend a lot of time on the discovery process and use that time to get to know the client. They do introduction calls, gather information about the client’s priorities, and put together a detailed proposal. Everybody has different goals, so the journey is different for everyone.
If clients decide to work with the firm, they go through an onboarding process. Overall, Halbert Hargrove uses a long-term approach to asset allocation, and it integrates various aspects of financial planning into the mix—what the company calls “wealth advisory services,” based on the client’s specific goals.
“We have to decide if the goals are sustainable, if course corrections should be made or not—we are not afraid to have fearless conversations.”
Depending on the client, outside estate planning may be employed. As Shane explained, in these cases family members are invited in to go through the wealth transfer process.
What is financial wellness?
According to Shane, financial wellness is being confident that you will meet your goals and being comfortable for the rest of your life. This can involve a number of additional services, which Halbert Hargrove provides, such as educating family members in the case of estate or retirement planning through special family meetings.
“Even if we’re not doing asset allocation or management for a family member, we’ll still work with them on education, just to make sure they are fully aware of their options, that they’re aware of how financial markets impact them.”
Industry-leading integrations
Halbert Hargrove is integrated with Envestnet |Tamarac for portfolio and client management. Shane pointed out that the company uses the full suite of Tamarac applications through the Okta dashboard to work more efficiently and free up resources.
Additional integrations include MoneyGuidePro and Social Security Analyzer for creating reports and analyzing portfolio performance. The firm relies on Laserfiche for enterprise content management, which Shane said helps advisors find and process data in historical records.
WealthTech Club takeaways
Halbert Hargrove Global Advisors has a rich history of helping people create a comfortable life for themselves during their working years, in retirement, and as estates for future generations. Its company culture is heavy on growing advisors out of interns. On the same token, its customer retention over a five-year period is 95%—which could be considered a reflection of its principles in providing quality wealth advice.
For more information or questions, please contact Halbert Hargrove at hhteam@halberthargrove.com.
