The digitization of financial services is upon us and with it comes an opportunity to grow—not just in our use of technology, but also in the way we serve clients. In this age of hybrid financial advice, where clients wish to experience the same autonomy they have on Amazon with the customized advice they get from their therapist, we have a lot of growing to do in the industry to meet these demands. Innovation is the key and technology is just a piece of the puzzle.
Trilogy Capital, a $5 billion wealth manager based in Irvine, Calif., is acquiring Mountain Capital Investment Advisors, a $1 billion registered investment advisor firm in Westminster, Colo.
Trilogy says the deal is its largest acquisition of the year and will establish its 11th office location and its second in Colorado.
Mountain Capital was founded in 2011 by Brandt Burns, a former U.S. Marine and airline pilot who says that joining Trilogy will provide his team of advisors with additional resources to improve their service model while preserving much of their operating model.
“We will retain our brand and unique position in the marketplace, and our leadership team, advisors, and staff will remain intact, so client disruption should be minimal,” he says. “This important move for our firm will not replace what we’ve built—it will strengthen it.”
In addition to Burns, other members of Mountain Capital have worked as pilots or in other roles in the aviation industry, and it has a niche serving clients who work in that sector. Brandt’s wife, Mountain Capital co-founder Michelle Burns, spent 14 years as a senior manager for United Airlines. At Mountain Capital, she led development of a specialized tax-preparation service designed for pilots and other aviation-industry professionals. Trilogy says that an affiliated company, Trilogy Tax & Consulting, will absorb Mountain Capital’s tax service.
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Written by: Matthew Phillips | The last words of the email stood out the most. “… the thing is … we are deaf.” This is how the prospective client closed her message to me in 2017.
When I agreed to meet with the woman and her husband, I was feeling uncertain about how to best communicate with them. To prepare, I added captions to my usual video presentation. But halfway through, I realized the couple was completely overwhelmed with the financial vocabulary I was using, which was entirely new to them. Improvising, I pulled up a blank Word document and started typing which allowed us to converse back and forth. I felt completely inadequate and regretted not preparing more, but did my best to connect with the couple.
To my surprise, the meeting concluded with the wife rejecting my handshake and instead grabbing onto me tightly as she began to cry. “Matthew, thank you for what you have done,” she said. “We have sat with five advisors, and none have come close to helping us like you have. I know we have missed out on financial opportunities because we are deaf.”
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