High Rock Private Client Turns 4

"People have no idea of what they are paying. It's a shame". Said founder Paul Tepsich to Barry Critchley back in 2014 in a Financial Post article titled "High Rock Capital Management Leads The Charge On Fee Disclosure".

Although, High Rock stands for more than just fee disclosure. High Rock stands for a new vision in the world of wealth and portfolio management: what Larry Bates refers to in his book, Beat The Bank as "New Bay Street": where not only does the true cost of investing become transparent, but non-conflicted fiduciary duty in portfolio management rules the day. 

How are "Old Bay Street" advisors conflicted? Simply by being agents who collect commissions from their big bank and financial services employers and / or mutual fund companies on the generation of revenue from their clients.

"Old Bay Street" advisors are rewarded on their ability to "gather" assets and generate fees from those assets. The emphasis is on "building a book" of gathered client assets and finding the most profitable way to extract a living on the commissions generated and in the end, sell the book of business to become further enriched. Often the client is just a dollar sign for generating revenue and treated as such (spending time with existing clients is costly, when you can be out gathering more of them). How many investors get to talk directly to the person managing their money? Do you get to talk to the person whose name is on the advisory practice?

High Rock Private Client was started to take this in a different direction entirely, making the focus on putting client's interests first. Early in 2017 we created and each signed a Voluntary Code of Conduct that ensures this throughout the process of planning (Wealth Forecast) and investment management and the continued monitoring, review and strategy updates.

We are owners, but also employees, who are paid a salary. There are no bonuses paid for generating revenue. If we grow our business, it is because we are doing right by our clients. High Rock Private Client has grown by over 300% in assets under management since our inception. So we must be doing something right.

We also invest in the exact Same securities: bonds, stocks and ETF's that our clients are invested in and provide a quarterly report from an Independent Review Committee (IRC) to our clients to ensure that we are adhering to our principles. With our Institutional Division, we have the ability to get preferred, wholesale pricing on our bond purchases (bulk trades) which we can pass directly on to our clients, something that Paul had been frustrated by in his attempts to buy bonds at reasonable prices into his "Old Bay Street" accounts and partly inspired him to want to create High Rock's Private Client division.

Truly, the client is High Rock's first priority.

I know that my blog readership is mostly a partisan crowd and that for the most part I am preaching to the choir. However, there is a growing alternative to the old ways and it is in everyone's best interest to seek it out, whether you are a Do It Yourself (DIY) investor or not, there are better options available for investors than what was / still is a captive group who are afraid to seek out an alternative (away from "Old Bay Street") that they can trust.