The Dividend Cafe - A Thanksgiving Message from The Bahnsen Group

Episode Date: November 21, 2017

A Thanksgiving Message from The Bahnsen Group by The Bahnsen Group

Welcome to the Dividend Cafe, financial food for you. I'm not going to sit here and talk to you for 10 minutes about tax reform or the market or the economy. I think this became a little tradition about three, four years ago, where on Thanksgiving week, we would do our video, but not do it in the normal Dividend Cafe tradition, just do a real Thanksgiving edition. So I'm actually out in the desert with my family right now. We spend this week out here every year. We have a house in Rancho Mirage and my extended family comes and stays with us and we're doing what is actually one of my favorite weeks of the year for Thanksgiving. And along that theme, I want to share a couple of Thanksgiving thoughts with you all. Really, it is a fun week and we get ready now to go into the whole holiday season. And 2017 has been just simply incredible year for the Bonson Group. Not only in terms of a lot of

the portfolio characteristics and a lot of the good things that have happened from an investment standpoint, I think there's been a lot of opportunities to really serve our clients this year, particular occasions for just real value add that not only I think is wonderful in terms of what we do professionally, but very candidly represents the most meaningful part personally of what this business is all about. But it's been a tremendous year in the sense that we've learned, we've grown, we've come together as a team, our business has continued to grow, and of course we think that so many of these things have represented an even better client experience, which is what we obsess over day in and day out. I'd be remiss if I didn't, before I kind of conclude with some of the most significant comments,

I really do want to express our gratitude for some of the actors in our whole process that you may not even be familiar with or aware of. From a research standpoint, and in this case I'm talking about stuff that I'm reading every single day, Saturday and Sunday, that represents a major part of informing decision-making that comes through in the portfolio management we're conducting on behalf of all of you. good friends at Strategist Research, at GavCal, those being our really most significant macro research partners have completely reinvented the intellectual capital of our business. And I could not be more thankful for our relationship with them. And as well as some of the other peripheral research partners that we work with,

from John Malden to Bernstein Research and so many other outfits. Just a tremendous source of thought leadership, sometimes vigorous disagreement, but a real important part of what we're doing. I even look at some of the technology vendors we use in terms of a day-to-day basis, how we go about serving clients, some of you probably find, a very small percentage of you, maybe find it real interesting. The vast majority of you couldn't care less. But what our ability now to leverage these individual vendors has meant to our operational

efficiencies from FACSET with our market data to Salesforce as our CRM. We have just better technological tools and relationships we've ever had, and I'm so grateful for that. You know, we have a very significant relationship with Fidelity being the primary custodian of our business, custodying over 95% of our clients' assets. We have a couple smaller custodial relationships, but Fidelity being that ideal partner for ours, recognizing that they work for our clients, they work for our business, and yet that the relationship we have with our clients can be so affected by the custodial delivery. And Fidelity has been nothing but complete partners of ours from day one when we started this business and we're just so thankful for them and without going into all the names of people you wouldn't know anyways,

we have a great team there, very, very happy. You know how I feel about a lot of our asset management partners. From the long-term relationship we've had, my investment mentor, Will Miller, in Woodstock, the entire team at Miller Howard Investments, our fixed income partners at Voya Asset Management in the taxable fixed income category, our tax-free partners at Alliance Bernstein, so many different alternative partners from the good folks at Case to Skybridge to Blackstone. These are people that are integral involved in what we're doing day-to-day basis

and make the art and science of asset allocation and portfolio management so much more fun and so much more effective in what we're doing. Very grateful for them, what they teach me, and the role they play in what we're delivering for clients. The guys at Hightower, guys and gals at Hightower, this is not something I can really possibly explain thoroughly enough for all you we have a relationship with our resource provider Hightower that goes beyond just merely a vendor they are true partners from the human resources

to the operational services technology the, the full platform, the full culture that they help bring to the table. We're so thankful. Some of these folks have become dear friends and the Bonson Group really is indebted to Hightower for the role they've played in helping our migration out of our former firm and into this land of fiduciary independence.

Thankful for that day-to-day operational relationship, but also thankful for the trailblazing that they did and Elliott's vision for the fiduciary mindset brought to the high net worth market that top shelf practitioners would be able to taste the land of independence has just been something that that we'll be eternally grateful for and then and then of course from my personal vantage point i'd be remiss if i didn't say on behalf of david bonson how thankful i am for everyone at the

bonson group our operations department and and everything that they're doing to serve clients and to make sure that inefficiencies and administrative mess-ups are not getting in the way. Analytics and solutions, what you all think of as our investment and trading and analytics department. The strategy communications group that's helping us be able to deliver the content that we work so hard to create to our clients, help create a more educated client, more informed around what we're thinking, what we're doing. And then our private wealth advisors and all the people in relationship with our clients doing financial planning, doing estate planning, delivering a wide array of services, and really

grabbing the hands of our clients and holding on to bring through the peaks and valleys of capital markets, but also through one's own financial life. This is just an absolutely our thrill to work with the team that I work with. And we have an incredible group of professionals and human beings. And I'm thankful for that team that I'm surrounded by on a day-to-day basis. And then, of course, last and most definitely not least is all of you, our clients. You're the bread and butter, and you're the nuts and bolts of why we do everything we do. We have a tremendous group of clients, people that really do trust us, and people that understand people that really do trust us and people that understand our obligation to be trustworthy,

people that are bought into a system of thinking and a philosophy of investment markets and enable this relationship to be what it is. Some clients have been with us for a very long time now. It's a loyalty that we're incredibly indebted for, but also one that we seek to reciprocate on a daily basis. We work very, very hard, but we do it because we care about our clients, and we really love what we do, and that's the best Thanksgiving I have to offer. Thank you all for another year in partnership with the Bonson Group.

We wish you a very happy Thanksgiving. Look forward to coming back next week for the real fun stuff. Talk a little tax reform. I'm sure you can't wait. Happy Thanksgiving. Look forward to coming back next week for the real fun stuff. Talk a little tax reform. I'm sure you can't wait. Happy Thanksgiving. Thank you for listening to the Dividend Cafe. Financial food for thought. This is not an offer to buy or sell securities. No investment process is free of risk, and there is no guarantee that the investment process or the investment opportunities referenced herein will be profitable. Past performance is not indicative of current or future performance is not a guarantee.

The investment opportunities referenced herein may not be suitable for all investors. All data and information referenced herein are from sources believed to be reliable. Any opinion, news, research, analyses, prices, or other information containing this research is provided as general market commentary. It does not constitute investment advice. Thank you for watching.