Verdence Capital Advisors is a private wealth advisory and multi-family office firm headquartered in Hunt Valley, Maryland, with additional offices in Northern Virginia, Naples, Florida, and Boston, Massachusetts. They manage nearly $4 billion in client assets, offering personalized services focused on in-depth financial planning and advice for high-net-worth individuals and families.
Their approach emphasizes sophisticated financial strategies tailored for complex portfolios, wealth preservation and transfer planning for future generations, comprehensive risk analysis across asset classes, and unique access to alternative and private investments. As an independent fiduciary, Verdence is committed to acting solely in their clients' best interests, providing transparent, product-agnostic advice without affiliations to banks, broker-dealers, insurance companies, or custodians.
In April 2021, Verdence announced a new brand for its family office division, Verdence/FAMILY, reflecting significant growth and a commitment to serving the unique needs of family office clients. This division focuses on complexity management, capital allocation, and legacy preservation, offering customized solutions for each family.
Verdence Capital Advisors positions itself in the retail market as a dedicated partner for high-net-worth individuals, focusing on protecting, preserving, and growing clients' wealth. Their comprehensive services include investment policy design, asset aggregation, retirement and estate planning, outsourced Chief Investment Officer (OCIO) services, access to unique investment opportunities, advisory team coordination, family governance, and philanthropic strategies. Verdence emphasizes unbiased, transparent advice tailored to each client's evolving financial goals, aiming to provide an outstanding client experience and to educate future generations to maintain the family heritage.
Verdence Capital Advisors offers a comprehensive investment management platform designed to cater to the unique needs of high-net-worth individuals and families. Their approach encompasses various strategy types, utilizes both external and internal managers, and is guided by a clear investment philosophy.
Strategy Types
Verdence structures investment policies aimed at preserving wealth while capitalizing on both traditional and unique investment opportunities. Their strategies are tailored to align with clients' time horizons, investment objectives, and risk tolerances, ensuring a personalized approach to wealth management.
External and Internal Managers
Verdence employs an open platform structure, allowing them to evaluate and incorporate a diverse range of investment opportunities. This flexibility enables them to perform necessary due diligence and analysis to determine the suitability of various investments for individual client portfolios, leveraging both internal expertise and external managers as appropriate.
Philosophy and Approach to Management
As an independent fiduciary, Verdence is committed to acting solely in their clients' best interests, providing transparent, product-agnostic advice without affiliations to banks, broker-dealers, insurance companies, or custodians. This independence allows them to remain focused on clients' financial objectives, values, and the legacies they wish to fulfill, tailoring customized investment portfolios that consider several factors, including time horizon, investment objectives, and risk tolerance.
By integrating these elements, Verdence Capital Advisors delivers a robust investment management platform that adapts to the evolving financial goals of their clients, emphasizing personalized strategies and unbiased advice.
Full Acquisition
Equity is not granted through the transaction. Through the Partner Path program, advisors can acquire equity in Verdence after accumulating over one million dollars in earnings.
Yes
Max Cash: 100%
Max Equity: 0%
Verdence's standard terms are ~30-50% held in retention for 12-18 months.
The compensation model for advisors involves payment based on revenue, with 25% of top-line revenue reserved at the headquarters level to address infrastructure costs. Of the remaining 75%, advisors receive 70% as their compensation, while the firm retains the remaining 30% as earnings.
To promote a unified brand, Verdence asks all partners to adopt its brand on day one.
To scale the business effectively, Verdence asks all partners to adopt their technology and systems.
Partners will have full autonomy over their calendars.
Partners will have visibility into their local P&L.
Advisors are encouraged, but not required, to utilize Verdence's client experience.
Advisors are encouraged to utilize the Verdence practice management resources.
Verdence encourages advisors to utilize models traded and managed by the investment team, but also allows them to follow their own strategies, provided they handle the trading independently.
Verdence stands out due to its distinctive approach in The Partner Path program, where advisors can acquire equity in Verdence after accumulating over one million dollars in earnings. Verdence wants equity in the hands of people who drive growth for the firm. Additionally, Verdence's investment platform, with a focus on the feeder company Independent Access Partners, adds another layer of uniqueness. Verdence further stands apart through its progressive career pathing tailored for aspiring G2 advisors.
Verdence offers a dedicated planning department to alleviate advisors' workload. Within this department, planners are equipped to handle tasks ranging from basic data entry to presenting comprehensive plans to clients, both initially and throughout the relationship. The extent to which advisors utilize these planning services is entirely at their discretion, allowing for flexibility and customization according to individual preferences.
Efficiency is Verdence's starting point. Verdence's platform is strategically structured with specialized experts in every area. This setup empowers advisors to collaborate with top professionals on the team, leading to substantial outcomes. From a comprehensive investment platform and robust financial planning resources to dedicated Verdence/family support, sophisticated performance reporting, streamlined trading processes, and a comprehensive technology stack, every aspect of Verdence is tailored to lighten the workload for advisors. This enables advisors to concentrate solely on relationship building and development, leading to growth.
Verdence Capital Advisors offers a comprehensive suite of services tailored to meet the unique needs of various client segments:
Private Wealth Management
For high-net-worth individuals and families, Verdence provides personalized wealth management solutions aimed at protecting, preserving, and growing wealth. Services include investment policy design, asset aggregation, retirement and estate planning, outsourced Chief Investment Officer (OCIO) services, access to unique investment opportunities, advisory team coordination, family governance, and philanthropic strategies. Their approach emphasizes unbiased, transparent advice tailored to each client's evolving financial goals.
Custom Family Office Services
Verdence offers bespoke family office services to simplify the financial lives of high-net-worth families. Their expertise encompasses complexity management, capital allocation, and legacy preservation. Services include assistance with day-to-day finances, property management, philanthropy guidance, family governance, cybersecurity precautions, and concierge services. This comprehensive approach allows clients to focus on personal pursuits while ensuring their financial affairs are expertly managed.
Sports and Entertainment Professionals
Through their specialty division, Verdence/PRO, Verdence caters to the unique financial needs of professional athletes and entertainers. Recognizing the distinct challenges faced by individuals in these industries, Verdence/PRO provides tailored wealth advisory services designed to manage and grow their clients' financial success throughout their careers and beyond.
Business Owners and Entrepreneurs
Verdence serves business owners and entrepreneurs by focusing on both personal and business financial goals. Their services include executive planning, business exit planning, liquidity management, business succession planning, investment management, alternative investments, tax and estate counseling, and philanthropic strategies. Verdence assists clients in navigating critical decisions such as business valuation, exit strategies, capital raising, and succession planning, aiming to achieve optimal long-term outcomes.
By offering specialized services across these client segments, Verdence Capital Advisors demonstrates a commitment to providing tailored financial solutions that address the distinct needs and goals of their diverse clientele.
Verdence relies on referrals as its main organic growth channel. The company actively supports advisors through the production of white papers and weekly market commentary. Additionally, Verdence hosts a podcast, "Markets with Megan", three times a week, each episode lasting 90-120 seconds. Furthermore, Verdence provides assistance in planning client events and encourages advisors to establish their own podcasts, making use of the dedicated podcasting room available at the HQ office.
With a singular focus on the firm, Leo Kelly (CEO) and Tom New (President) play a key role in supporting partners with practice management. Verdence offers support by aiding partners in defining staff roles and responsibilities for their local office, conducting employee reviews and performance management, as well as assisting in the identification and implementation of strategic growth initiatives.