• The Family Office Concept
• Alignment: The Key to Your Multi-Generational Success
• The Freedom to Do What's Best For You
• Whose Side Are They On? Ask Your Current Wealth Advisor
• Alignment White Paper

Whose Side Are They On? Ask Your Current Wealth Advisor

If you feel that your family would benefit from an aligned family office such as GenSpring - a family office working for you and helping you ensure all of your wealth management activities were oriented appropriately around your objectives - it's important to determine whether other providers you are considering or may be using in this capacity can truly fulfill this mission.

Your family's success depends on understanding the difference between working with a traditional financial services company and an aligned wealth manager. To identify the distinction, ask your current advisor or firms you are considering to be your advisor the following questions:

• Do investment managers you recommend to your clients or utilize in client portfolios compensate your firm in any way?
• Have you ever been prevented from recommending a manager because the manager would not compensate your firm?
• Does your firm do any type of business with the financial product firms you are recommending, such as trading, custody, investment banking, perhaps distribution of their products?
• If your firm negotiates a discount from a manager for volume purposes, do you pass that discount back to your clients or do you keep it in your firm?
• Are people in the firm compensated -- either directly through commissions or indirectly through bonuses - based on how much of a particular product they sell in a given year?
• Is your firm aligned or owned by an asset management organization - directly or indirectly?
• Is your firm affiliated with an investment bank or capital markets group and if so how often are new product ideas sourced from these areas?
• What percentage of the investment products you offer to your clients is proprietary?
• Does anyone other than your client pay you a fee or other form of non-fee incentives?

If your advisor answers "yes" to any of these questions, they are not aligned with your interests and may actually be operating in conflict with you. They are certainly not providing you with advice from your side of the table. If they answer "no" get it in writing.

We invite you to ask GenSpring these same questions to understand the difference.