The CEO

A busy CEO with children nearing college age engaged us to help him reduce taxes on his significant annual income, invest for an early retirement, obtain an appropriate level of insurance, and finance his children's college education.

The CEO hired us to help manage his multi-faceted financial picture. With a family of four, several family trusts, taxable investments, life insurance, a 401(k) and stock options to manage, time and interest were an issue.

We documented all aspects of his finances into a cohesive document showing him his projected net worth given various retirement dates and realigned his investment portfolio using a variety of tax efficient investment vehicles to reduce his tax burden.

We recommended that he establish a life insurance trust to purchase a new 20-year level term life insurance policy on his life to provide for his family in the event of a premature death. By having the insurance policy owned in the trust, we prevent it from being a part of in his taxable estate.

On an on-going basis, we proactively contact him when changes need to be made to his investment portfolio and coordinate with his CPA and attorney on a variety of issues. In addition, we provide him comprehensive quarterly reports on all investment holdings so that he can now see all of his investment holdings and investment performance on one consolidated report.

The Widow

Upon the death of her husband, a middle-aged widow retained Barnett Financial to help her manage the probate process and help her deal with her new found financial resources and responsibilities.

We went to the client's home and reviewed hundreds of pages of documents to provide the attorney and CPA the information needed to probate the estate. In doing so, we encountered an error in the decedents self drafted will which we were able to resolve. Dealing with financial issues at a time of personal loss is difficult for anyone, but especially for someone with little experience with financial matters. Our client had never dealt with family finances and was overwhelmed at the prospect of paying bills, balancing the checkbook and other such matters. We worked with the client at her own pace over a period of months and helped her get comfortable dealing with basic family finances.

Despite the considerable assets the client now controlled, she wanted and needed help controlling her spending so that she would not prematurely deplete her assets. We structured her investment portfolio to ensure her a fixed monthly income stream that was sufficient to provide a comfortable standard of living and peace of mind in her financial future.