Top Wealth Management Services Company – 2022
Bankers CIO Magazine
Fiduciary Promise
We are a fee-only financial advisor – 100% fee-only. Unlike many financial advisors, Sovereign Capital Vantage wealth advisors are fiduciaries for our clients, and we put that in writing with our Fiduciary Promise.
- We will put your interests first – ahead of our own.
- We will act in utmost good faith and undivided loyalty to you.
- We will make recommendations only after understanding your investment objectives, financial situation and concerns.
- We will act diligently and exercise professional competence.
- We will eliminate conflicts of interest wherever possible, and provide full and fair disclosure for conflicts that are unavoidable.
- We will provide you with a full and fair disclosure of all fees.
- We will not accept payments for recommending any investment to you.
- We will not accept payments from other professionals for referring you to them.
We operate with complete transparency, avoid conflicts of interest, and disclose all details, fees and expenses. We take the time to thoroughly explain all of your investments in plain English.
Because we put you first, we don’t accept sales commissions, kickbacks or rebates from any investment companies. We are not about products and transactions. The result? We have none of the conflicts of interest inherent in commissioned broker transactions.
To schedule a private consultation with one of our financial advisors, call us at (804) 299-3747.
Our Philosophy
We conduct our business according to a Code. Our Code is based on the guiding principle that the interests of our client are the top priority. Our officers, directors, advisors, and other employees have a fiduciary duty to our clients and must diligently perform that duty to maintain their trust and confidence.
1. Our first rule with our client’s money is that it’s our client’s money. This is our compass.
2. We believe perhaps the starting point to making money is to avoid losing it. Our objective is not to beat the market during a record year of positive returns, rather, it’s to beat the market when the market is down. Why?
- Recovering from a 50% loss, requires a 100% return.
- Recovering from a 32% loss requires only a 47% return.
3. Cut out the middleman. This means we don’t sell you mutual funds, ETFs or other pre-packaged investment products, all of which would add additional costs on top of management fees. We also don’t work with third-party money managers. Not only does this philosophy reduce expenses, it allows you to know you’re working directly with the professionals who are managing your money.
4. You can only spend your money once, but you can spend the money your money makes over and over again. This idea is foundational to the strategies and plans we develop.
5. We believe it is possible to enjoy higher returns than the market, while at the same time taking less risk than the market. Ask us how this is possible.
Our Process
Starts with You.
You ultimately determine the process: How involved do you need or want us to be? How complex is the situation you need help with? At what stage of life are you in? Our process begins with getting to know you and your goals, and making sure you understand our business. First we determine what level of help fits your situation, then we’ll get started.
We believe a detailed planning process can be one of the most effective ways to establish financial security. An effective plan may not only provide financial security throughout your life, but it can also reduce the damage that disability, critical illness, or other sudden losses of income can produce.
Generally speaking, we use a five-step process. You may need all five, or you may not.
1. Where are you now financially?
2. Where do you want to be, and when?
3. Is it possible for you to get there?
4. How will we get you to your goal, including identifying obstacles and planning to avoid them.
5. Periodic review to see if we are on course or if we need to make adjustments.
Wealth Management
In a simple example of a client who has an old 401k from a prior employer, the basic process would be opening an Individual IRA account for them and facilitating the transfer of the assets to the new account. After a meeting with them to learn what we need to know to properly act in their best interest, we typically invest the funds in one of our 5 proprietary models. For this type of service, we are compensated with a percentage of the value of the assets we manage, paid monthly (fee only). This means the faster your money grows the faster our revenues grow. Our compensation is tied directly to your investments’ performance. When you do better, we do better.
What does this mean for you? It means you have in us, advisors who are incentivized, both from a professional and personal place, to maximize your money’s growth and safe accumulation. Would you like to learn more about how we use our proprietary and unique approach to Financial Planning to achieve results for our clients?
Financial Planning
Simple planning might include an immediate financial decision, such as whether or not to pay off your house when some unexpected money comes along or invest the funds and use gains to make the payments. Rarely are good decisions made without all the options being known. We help our clients understand all their options. When you see all the options, the best choice can become crystal clear.
Complex planning is needed when many factors must be taken into consideration–especially over a long period of time with numerous assumptions involved. A simple example of this could be this very common situation: a 50-year-old couple wanting to know how they are doing with their retirement savings. Are they saving enough to retire at age 65 and have enough income to maintain their lifestyle? This is a common and simple question that requires a great deal of planning and the consideration of numerous factors both known and projected. But the bottom line is, a plan not only improves the likelihood of success, but it also provides peace of mind along the way.
For Planning and Consulting, we charge an hourly rate. The number of hours estimated for a project are agreed upon ahead of time so we can all do our best to avoid surprises. We have a great track record and have never asked a client to amend an agreement because we needed more time than estimated.
When engaged in various types of planning, we utilize a five-step process. In short, we want to correctly understand where you are, where you want to be, and when you need to be there; and then identify anything that might prevent that from happening. Once we know these things, we develop a comprehensive written plan designed to achieve the goal while also identifying all known risks to the objective along with specific plans to mitigate or avoid those potential obstacles.
Divorce Planning
Why Divorce/Separation Planning Is Important
When two people, once joined by marriage, head off in new directions, each of them will encounter change and uncertainty, a possible intermingling of or rotation between anxiety and excitement, and, of course, big financial shifts. Having someone to prepare and guide them in making the best possible decisions can affect the rest of their lives.
And that’s where our Divorce (and Separation) Planning service can help.
What We Can Do For You
Here are some of the highlights of this service:
- Help you establish your priorities with respect to children, property and finances.
- Help you get organized with financial statements, tax returns, details about investments, employee benefit information, mortgages, earnings, listing assets and debts, listing marital property and receipts, household inventory, household bills, bank accounts, credit cards, child or spousal support, insurance and other documents that would have a bearing on your financial situation.
- Assist you in developing a comprehensive to-do list for the process.
- Help you prepare a financial affidavit (for those who have connection with states requiring it).
- Help you in your assessment of your separation agreement.
If you find yourself in need of assistance, please reach out to us for a confidential consultation. We look forward to bringing clarity, direction and a modicum of peace to this process for you.
Sovereign Capital Vantage, Inc. (“SCV”) is a Mississippi Corporation and is registered with the States of Mississippi, Tennessee, Missouri, Illinois and Virginia as a Registered Investment Adviser. We operate under a strict Code of Ethics. SCV’s Code is based on the guiding principle that the interests of the client are the top priority. SCV’s offices, directors, advisors, and other employees have a fiduciary duty to the clients and must diligently perform that duty to maintain the trust and confidence of the clients. If a conflict were to arise, it would be SCV’s obligation to put the client’s interests over the interests of either employees or the company.