Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Who is Mesirow Financial and why do you use them as your clearing firm?
A: Mesirow Financial has many different functions, but for RPG they serve as a clearing firm and custodian for investment accounts. This is extremely important to provide checks and balances which eliminates the possibility of issues arising similar to that of the Bernard Madoff fraud case in December, 2008. For more info see attached.
Q: What To Bring To Our First Meeting?
Q: What are the steps to begin a financial relationship?
A: First Meeting - This meeting is designed to gather information, but more importantly for the client prospect and RPG to interview each other. The client - advisor relationship is something RPG takes very seriously. It goes well beyond the finances, it must be a long term relationship to become successful. Therefore it is extremely important to take the time to get to know one another. We want to understand you and your families approach to finances, your short term/long term goals, and more.
Second meeting - This is a time for RPG to review and to verify the financial information with the client prospect. RPG will present the client prospect's financial forecast and allow both to ask more questions and possibly make recommendations to the client.
Third meeting - This meeting is designed to present the revised financial forecast. It is also a time to finalize the client - advisor relationship and spell out the plan of action items and timeline.
Q: How often does an RPG advisor meet with their client's.
A: This varies from client to client depending on needs, goals and objectives. Most commonly however, this is on a quarterly schedule to not only review investments, but most importantly to learn what has changed in our client's personal and financial lives.
Q: How is a Fee-based advisor different from a commissioned advisor?
A: Fee based advisors receive a fee for their services as opposed to being compensated thru commissions. One type of fee is one that is based on Assets Under Management. Our belief at RPG is that puts us on the same side of the table as our clients. We are paid more to see your assets grow, and paid less if your accounts retrace. Therefore, we have every incentive to preserve and grow our client assets. We also are incentivized to keep your internal costs to a minimum, as any dollar out of our client's pocket is money out of ours. We also know that we have recurring revenue from our clients. Therefore we don't have a need to churn accounts or to sell a product that doesn't make sense for the purpose of generating revenue for us.
As well, at RPG we spend a great deal of time advising our clients outside of the investment arena. With a portfolio manager on staff, this enables our advisors to spend significant planning time with our client's which provides great value.
Q: How does a Fee-based advisor get paid?
A: Fee-Based advisors are generally paid on a percentage of the assets that they manage. For example if a client invests $1 Million with RPG, the fee structure typically is 1% of this $1 Million to be paid on a quarterly basis. Therefore, the client would be charged $2500 per quarter from the assets managed.