What Financial Advisors Can Learn from Stephen Hawking’s Legacy

Private equity-backed hybrid RIA Trilogy Financial Services has acquired a $1bn shop with a niche serving pilots and aviation professionals.

Trilogy said Thursday it has snapped up Mountain Capital Investment Advisors, located in Westminster in Colorado’s Denver-Boulder corridor. The terms of the transaction, which marks Irvine, Calif.-based Trilogy’s largest acquisition of the year, were not disclosed.

Mountain Capital is led by chief executive Brandt Burns and vice president Michelle Burns, a husband-and-wife duo who co-founded the firm in 2011 alongside founder emeritus Robert Loesch. Brandt Burns is a US Marine Corps veteran who previously worked as an advisor with Morgan Stanley Smith Barney for more than a decade. Before that, he was a commercial pilot at the now-defunct regional airline Atlantic Coast Airlines (later known as Independence Air). Michelle Burns worked for United Airlines for 14 years.

The firm provides financial planning to individual, family and small business clients with a focus on people involved in the aviation industry. It also offers tax preparation services and consulting services for pilots and airline professionals.

Brandt Burns stated that the deal allows Mountain Capital to retain its brand, leadership team, advisors and staff. The company will become Trilogy’s eleventh office and second location in Colorado.

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It’s never too early to begin discussing the concept of money and personal finances with your children. In fact, some financial experts suggest these conversations should begin during elementary school.

For parents who missed that boat (and you’re not alone if that’s you), all is not lost. It’s even more critical to sit your child down and talk about effective personal finance management as he or she is preparing to leave the nest for college, a time in life when they’ll be faced with credit card offers; signing onto student loans, and, in many cases, living on their own for the first time.

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