Written by: Amanda Schiavo | In your career as a planner, you’re bound to meet a character or two. Plus, when you consider the unique bond that develops in an advisor-client relationship, it makes sense you will field some, well, unorthodox requests from clients from time to time.
Scroll through the following list to see advisors' favorite anecdotes on baffling, funny and just plain strange queries.
The Social Security Administration’s 2018 Trustee report contains the same dire news as last year – the benefit program will run out of money in 2034. Some look at this distant date as a reason to remain calm, confident a solution will be found. “Despite the projections on the insolvency of Social Security, I do not hold the belief that Social Security will dry up entirely,” says Ryan Repko, a financial adviser for Ruedi Wealth Management, Inc. in Champaign, Illinois. “For better or worse, social security has become hardcoded in the American DNA, after all, it is not called the ‘3rd rail of politics’ for nothing. No politician wants to be in office and have social security dry up, so something will have to change that will reform social security, to keep it intact for generations to come. That’s my humble optimistic view.”
Others deny the way the math is interpreted. “Social Security is definitively not on the cusp of insolvency,” says Glenn Sulzer, Senior Analyst in the Corporate Compliance division of Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory U.S. “The media hysteria that typically accompanies the SS Trustees’ Report ignores the fact that under current tax collections, the trust fund will be sufficient to pay 3/4 benefits for 75 years. The choreographed emergency is especially misplaced with those currently 50 and older, and even with respect to employees under the age of 50.
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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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