The Dividend Cafe - Happy Thanksgiving!!

Episode Date: November 24, 2021

I know it is not the edition some of you look forward to most each year, devoid of such enticing topics as monetary policy and market valuations, but it is one I genuinely enjoy writing each year. Today’s Dividend Cafe captures some Thanksgiving reflections from yours truly, the author of each week’s Dividend Cafe but also the Founder and Managing Partner of this firm. I remain in a daily state of overwhelming gratitude for so, so much, that this Dividend Cafe Thanksgiving reflection is just a cake walk to write. Links mentioned in this episode: DividendCafe.com TheBahnsenGroup.com

Welcome to the Dividend Cafe, weekly market commentary focused on dividends in your portfolio and dividends in your understanding of economic life. Hello and welcome to a special Dividend Cafe Thanksgiving edition. I know most of you probably do prefer me going into the normal subjects that we cover in Dividend Cafe. I assume if you didn't want that, you wouldn't listen to Dividend Cafe. And so things like monetary policy and market valuations and macroeconomic affairs, we'll pick that back up next week, as always. But yes, this is that rare Dividend Cafe where I'm out of the market and out of the economy and into gratitude and into that season of Thanksgiving that we celebrate here this week. And so it is my favorite holiday. I love Thanksgiving and I do have a lot to be thankful

for. And so rather than go through all my personal reflections as it pertains specifically to the Bonson Group and our enterprise that's dedicated to serving our clients, I want to just make a couple comments here and appreciate you bearing with me. You know, we have a wonderful team at the Bonson Group. It's grown a lot. And the size of the team and the particular services that we can now hire people for is all byproduct of that decision about seven years ago now. It was actually Thanksgiving weekend of 2014 that I was really, really deep into the planning of our departure from Morgan Stanley. And at the time, we were a team of nine people, including myself. And in fact, most of those nine did not know at the time that this was in the works. It became more of a team planning effort shortly after that new year. But seven years now, basically, of independence,

of just a whole different apparatus of how we can serve clients, the autonomy that we have day by day to run our company as we see fit. It really is something I'm incredibly thankful for. And out of that reason for gratitude, this independence, that decision seven years ago to totally transform our business, we now have 37 people, soon be 39. There are two positions we're trying to hire for now. And each and every one of these people and each and every one of the roles they play, I'm incredibly grateful for. And in divinacafe.com today, I walked through the different departments and all the things that

Brian and Glenn do in our communications department to allow us to put content at front and center of how we serve clients and the value that we think it adds to at least attempt to demonstrate thought leadership in financial services and in market activity. Our operations department led by Jacqueline and with Beth and Camille and Alexis. We have a new person who's joining the team, Tammy, in another week. We have the office managers here in Newport with Erica and in New York with Abigail. All of these people are just completely dedicated to client service, have been very, very loyal to the firm, to our clients, to each other, and are real workhorses. I mean, put their heads down and diligently go to work every day. I'm very thankful for their

contribution to our team. The investment solutions department, our analytics group that Daya has built out, the traders, the analysts. We've added LePing in equity research this year, Manuel in investment analytics. Kenny has become a real star in our alternative investments and leading a lot of the analytics in terms of client portfolio work. Daya is a complete leader in this department, and I'm just so grateful. We are an investment-forward group, and we could not do it without the talent of these people that we have been able to hire.

We created a services and planning department this year. And I've just found an absolute star to run it by the name of Joe Klein, helped us to drive a family office initiative. We have Matt Gregory in our New York office who drives daily portal administration processing. He's becoming an outstanding paraplanner. And Joe is going to be leading what I think will be one of the great evolutions of our company as we build out a risk management offering in 2022 with the professionals we've hired in Minnesota. The family office offering has blown away our expectations for our ultra high net worth group. Joe is a key leader in that effort. So this services and planning department is something we're so excited about.

Jolene running what we call style and experience department, but our client events, the kind of decor and branding and gifts and all of these things that really make a big difference to not only the external presentation of our firm, but to the experience that we deliver to clients. Jolene has literally handled the move to our brand new Newport Beach location earlier in the year, then our brand new New York location a few months after that, then the setup and install of our new Minneapolis office,

after that, then the setup and install of our new Minneapolis office, and is now working on the install of where we're moving into in Nashville in the first quarter of next year. So doing one office move in a year is overwhelming, but to do four in less than 12 months is just staggering. And she has incredible design talent on the team with Mina and Sierra helping her with all these efforts across this department. She's built out just a wonderful group. You know, the Minnesota edition I talked about earlier, the way in which Phil and Michelle and Stoddard came into my life and the transaction we ended up affecting and their addition to our culture, our team, their clients. It's been an absolutely wonderful development and we couldn't be more excited to have TBG present in the Minneapolis community serving their clients and corporate executives

and that whole addition to business that they represent. They are absolutely wonderful culture carriers at the Bonson Group and Reed and Sarah on their team. These are just true TBGers in every way. Of course, our advisor group cannot be forgotten here. And now this is kind of hard to do. You might either be impressed or underwhelmed, or maybe you think I have a cue card behind me, but I assure you I do not. It is a lot easier to remember eight or nine people on the team than it is 37. and the advisors, you know, been with us a bit longer. Just total professionals, absolutely outstanding leaders and senior members of our advisory team. Jeff Gregory out in Connecticut, who we brought in to our organization a few years ago now, has been a star.

I mean, just a truly amazing client-centric fiduciary advisor. And I'd say the same thing for Steve Treznan in our New York office who joined us a couple years ago as well. These are all veterans and true senior leaders. And Trevor, who has been with us now, he wasn't with us when we left Morgan, but he left Morgan shortly after to join us. And at the time was kind of a younger advisor in our group, but now is a senior member of our leadership team and has become one of the truly great financial advisors in our industry, along with our colleagues, Sean Latimer and Brendan Porter, Nate Straw, Drew Dill, who joined us earlier in the year as a private banker from Wells Fargo.

He's been with us now for a year and is really one of the great financial advisors. Evan Bozemski just recently joined us in our New York office. Brian Miller is going to be, he's in California right now. He was out of Lions Bernstein for several years and came over to us and is going to be one of the inaugural advisors in our Nashville office. Everybody that I've mentioned here is dedicated to the mission of the Bonson Group, and that has to do with a client-centric approach to the delivery of financial services and a total, complete, unrelenting commitment to excellence. services and a total, complete, unrelenting commitment to excellence. I think I'm a pretty demanding managing partner, but I know that the business itself is demanding. Markets are demanding.

Clients have high expectations. And we just happen to have a group of advisors that really are committed head to toe to delivering that result. There's other people in the organization you don't necessarily deal with a lot. Raina, our business administrator. I mentioned our office managers with Erica in Newport and Abigail in New York. And then, you know, in terms of Daya and Brian Saitel, what they represent as leaders with me, Daya as COO, Brian is the deputy managing partner, total professionals, but enabling us to really scale, leverage all of each other's respective strengths, and become a much better organization for it. The only way I define a better organization is how we're serving clients. The only way I define a better organization is how we're serving clients. The fact that I believe we are delivering the right outcome to clients,

that we do not under any circumstances ever lie to clients. There are a lot of customers of wealth management who want to be lied to sometimes. They want us to say that certain things can be done that can't be done. And we are all committed to telling the truth no matter where that leads and to enjoying the relationship of trust that comes out of constant, unrelenting truth-telling. That's our ethos at the Bonson Group. It's been our motto here this year, and the results have been fantastic. Now, look, everything I've said about every department and so many of the different elements of our growth and evolution and all that stuff,

it all pales in comparison to the gratitude that I mean very sincerely we have for our clients. We really are very blessed to work with outstanding clients that are grateful for what we do, that recognize how hard our operations team works, that recognize all the behind-the-scenes players, and that have bought into a philosophy. In a lot of ways, it's a very countercultural one, but it's one I'm very proud of. And I'm proud of the team of people that are committed to it, and I'm proud of the clients that receive it and that have trusted us to provide that guidance and direction that we can deliver the outcome that we are so committed to. This is the greatest business in the world. I'm so thankful to be in it. I'm thankful to be engaged in capital markets, which I believe is an engine of free enterprise. And I believe free enterprise is itself the great miracle of modernity that has created more poverty alleviation than anything in human history, has created more human flourishing than anything in history. And because I'm so deeply committed to free enterprise, it requires me to

be committed to capital markets that are such an integral part of that. And of course, when you take these capital markets that represent the necessary component in free enterprise, you then get a sort of vehicle by which you can monetize clients' investment goals, their savings goals, the financial outcomes that they need out of the objectives that they have in their financial affairs. That's what we do. I don't know how it could be more exciting than that. It's a wonderful life. It's a wonderful career. We're grateful to have a wonderful company. And from every single thing I mentioned today, my heart is overwhelmed with Thanksgiving. Thank you to all of you for being faithful and consistent listeners of Dividend Cafe.

Even those of you who watch the video and have to look at this mug every week. And I wish all of you and yours a very, very happy Thanksgiving. And we're excited to kind of play out the remainder of the holiday season as we go through the remainder of 2021 and get excited for the new year of 2022. Happy Thanksgiving from all of us at the Bonson Group. The Bonson Group is a group of investment professionals registered with Hightower Securities LLC, member FINRA and SIPC, and with Hightower Advisors LLC, a registered investment advisor with the SEC. Thank you. Terian will be profitable. Past performance is not indicative of current or future performance and is not a guarantee. The investment opportunities referenced Terian may not be suitable for all investors. All data and information referenced Terian are from sources believed to be

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