Absolute Return Solutions.....?

[damonhowatt]

Good morning. I went to a one hour meeting last week with an advisor from Absolute Returns Solutions. No steak dinner or anything, just a quick hour long sit down. This was referred from a friend who is quite wealthy and who seems fairly astute concerning money/investing.

There was very little, if any, actual substance concerning what they invested your funds in. The advisor kept saying 'quality corporate bonds, etcetera' would be laddered into 5 year segments.

The cost would be $1000 - 4000 for the initial plan setup and then ~ 1.05% on an annual basis on funds that are not in any corporate bonds.

My question is: does anyone have any experience with this firm? They have offices in Seattle (my location), Redmond, and Denver. The advisor is pressing for a second meeting......

Thank you,
Steve

 

[MichaelB]

Sounds to me like you should absolutely not return.

 

[exnavynuke]

I have no experience with that firm. I do have experience with people trying to take a significant percentage of my hard earned money, and my answer to that is pretty well always a resounding "no thanks". IMO, anyone intelligent enough to be responsible with their finances is probably intelligent enough to learn enough about investing so that they wouldn't need to fork over their money to someone else.

 

[damonhowatt]

Point taken!

 

[REWahoo]

There was very little, if any, actual substance concerning what they invested your funds in.

 

[DrRoy]

No experience with this because I would never even consider it. My $ is for my benefit, not some FA.

 

[COcheesehead]

Fidelity will design a bond ladder for you for free. The bonds will cost you a $1 each in commission.

 

[growing_older]

I hear advertisements for them on the radio all the time. Never any details of what they are providing. I always assumed it was some kind of invest in life insurance thing.

 

[Happyras]

OMG !!!! RUN
We spent about 9 months with them nearly bi-weekly reviewing and going through the "set-up". In the end they hard sold us to sell a bad annuity, then pushed us into 3 different structured annuities. They took our "Bucket G" funds and hard sold us into 4 managed accounts. We quickly woke up, cancelled it all and moved to TD. We bought into the cookies and bottled water while it structured us to both review our plan in a structured third party environment.

Bottom line, they are likely OK for someone with a little money and no sense how to set up a plan. However for us, we don't need someone to manage our money and charge us fees to hold managed accounts and annuities.

I say run.....anyone selling annuities is not a Fiduciary in my book. I still get amusing email from them appologizing for lack of performance here, and firing a poor manager there.

Brian Decker was a partner to Jim Black at that time, he later created his own company and radio show infomercial in the Seattle area.

 

[Chuckanut]

The cost would be $1000 - 4000 for the initial plan setup and then ~ 1.05% on an annual basis on funds that are not in any corporate bonds.

Steve

Those fees seem very high to me. Both the initial plan fee and the annual percentage.

 

[Happyras]

Those fees seem very high to me. Both the initial plan fee and the annual percentage.

It may have changed since Brian Decker left, but they quoted us as high as 1.8% on managed accounts and did not pitch any corporate bonds, rather promoted indexed annuities.

1.08% for <1M is typical. We did go through Washington Trust Bank for a short period where they took .45% on a much larger account, but even that low fee was not worth it when a few funds at VG can do better for lower cost.

 

[MRG]

Run fast, run far!

There's a bunch of these little slick willy firms. They're all selling you some kinda crap investments that you can mostly buy on your own if you wanted. Only without the additional 1% 12B1 fees, defered sales charges, these clowns add!

If you don't feel comfortable DIY, Vanguard's PAS is only .30 a year and they have a fiduciary interest. If you hire someone there working with someone's financial future in mind, make sure it's yours! Advisors take care of themselves first!


I w*rked with a few guys who were let go before the recession. They had their licenses because of Megacorp so off they go as FA'S.

I knew these people for years. I thought they carried little maps to find their cubes every morning. It was bizarre I'd never met more absolutely clueless individuals and to see them scurrying off to be FAs.

 

[travelover]

If you absolutely insist on hand holding, go with a Vanguard advisor for 0.3%. As an absolute minimum, you will save 2/3 of your investing costs, probably more because Vanguard does not have all the BS additional charges.

 

[target2019]

There was very little, if any, actual substance concerning what they invested your funds in. The advisor kept saying 'quality corporate bonds, etcetera' would be laddered into 5 year segments.

The cost would be $1000 - 4000 for the initial plan setup and then ~ 1.05% on an annual basis on funds that are not in any corporate bonds.

Their name would be more accurate as "Absolute Return Less 1%."

I've been to similar tables, and you just won't get details until you let them into your checkbook. At least I got a pretty good dinner!

 

[joesxm3]

Run fast, run far!

There's a bunch of these little slick willy firms. They're all selling you some kinda crap investments that you can mostly buy on your own if you wanted. Only without the additional 1% 12B1 fees, defered sales charges, these clowns add!

If you don't feel comfortable DIY, Vanguard's PAS is only .30 a year and they have a fiduciary interest. If you hire someone there working with someone's financial future in mind, make sure it's yours! Advisors take care of themselves first!


I w*rked with a few guys who were let go before the recession. They had their licenses because of Megacorp so off they go as FA'S.

I knew these people for years. I thought they carried little maps to find their cubes every morning. It was bizarre I'd never met more absolutely clueless individuals and to see them scurrying off to be FAs.

This does not apply to the firm mentioned, but I can't help it when a story comes to mind.

Back in 1996 I used to play chess at a club that met in a small book store. There was one unemployed guy that I would see every week. He was relatively young and a nice guy. Well, one week he came up to me and said "I finally got a job, as a financial adviser. Did I want to have him manage my money?"

A co-worker who has a horrible track record financially listened to his brother in law and signed up with a well known company run by a guy named Peter (not Lynch) that invests in non-us stocks and metals. He was very happy with his new situation and was explaining his investments to me. He said, "of course, like all funds, this has a five percent front end load, but I will be back to even in no time."

Well, I am now returning you to your normally scheduled programming.

 

[FreeBear]

The cost would be $1000 - 4000 for the initial plan setup and then ~ 1.05% on an annual basis on funds that are not in any corporate bonds.

Hi Steve,

Just checked out your original post from 2 years ago, where you said you planned to retire in 2 yrs. So is this the year??

In 2015 it looked like you managed to accumulate a decent nest egg, enough to support a sub 4% WR with any sort of SS. You didn't mention a financial advisor then, so I'm assuming you made it own your own. So why the interest in financial advisors now? Especially with the 2016 bull market and 2 more years of saving, you must be in even better shape. Why risk 1.05% plus any extra hidden fees when you've already made it??

FB

 

[damonhowatt]

Final Word on Absolute Returns...

Thanks to all of you for your responses; they were very much on the mark. I did not go to the follow up meeting and, when asked why, told them the lack of transparency and high fee structure.

REWahoo: I liked your alarm video; made for interesting looks while at work.

Happyras: I did indeed end up running. I saw the "G Bucket" listed on a spreadsheet very similar to what you experienced. All in all, I think I experienced the initial sales without the hard sell, which was to come. I specifically asked if they were selling annuities (any type of annuities) and he said no. Maybe they're onto a different scheme now?

MRG, travelover: I've looked at the Vanguard advisor service; you're correct, it's exponentially cheaper.

Free Bear: In my original post, I aimed for this year. It's possible but I still need to get my ducks in a row. I haven't had a financial advisor up to this point and I'm still waffling on it. Even with a client friendly firm such as Vanguard, I'm still unsure. I've received good to very good results on my own but can't claim any financial brilliance. I think a good part of it was investing during the 1990's and subsequently hanging on through the bank/RE debacle of 2008 and on through the following bull market. My friends who use this firm (married couple) have a combined income of ~$450K - $500K/annually. They really talked this firm up. When I step back and see how they spend money, I realize that they have so much coming in, they don't need to care how much their investing fees are. I'm in the opposite camp! I had hoped this would be a different type of firm than what I usually read about: lack of integrity, shyster, high fees, churning, etcetera.

Anyway, I'm out of the loop as far they're concerned. I appreciate all of the responses.

Steve

 

[LOL!]

I saw this slogan on bogleheads.org which seems appropriate here:

"We turn your money and our experience into our money and your experience."