Lodestar provides two types of service to individuals: Investment Management and Wealth Management. If you have an existing set of advisors, such as an accountant and attorney, who are familiar with your history and are helping you manage your financial affairs effectively, then our Investment Management service is the best option. We focus all of our efforts for you on effective portfolio management. If, on the other hand, you would benefit from a more comprehensive approach, where investment management is coordinated with financial planning, tax and estate planning, and charitable giving ideas, then Wealth Management is the better option. In that case, we not only provide portfolio management, we also help coordinate other important areas of your life, such as optimizing your cash flows, taxes, insurance, estate planning and charitable giving.
Lodestar has been working with individual clients like you for over 20 years. Over that time we have developed strong relationships and many successful outcomes. Here are some real life examples (we have altered the names and some minor facts to protect clients' confidentiality).
Betty came to us when she was making her way through a messy divorce that had dragged on for years. We assisted her and her attorney in finalizing and dividing the financial accounts and bringing the litigation to a close. Betty could finally look forward to a new future with confidence and hope rather than focusing on a painful past. We established a long-term financial plan for her and helped determine the budget, or "spending plan", that would be sustainable over her lifetime. Betty has relatives overseas and she has allocated significant dollars to travel so she can visit them regularly. She has been able to maintain her spending plan, including helping out her two sons, despite the 2008 financial crisis. We helped Betty efficiently finance their college education, and then helped her plan a move to Southern California to be close to her oldest son. She eventually helped finance his first home.
After many years of building a successful business, Doug and Claire were ready to enjoy the next season of their lives, but they recognized the importance of making smart financial decisions as they headed into this new phase. They hired Lodestar for a comprehensive solution that would coordinate active management of their investments with a well-thought-out financial plan. Estate planning, tax strategies, and cash flow needs all needed to be addressed. We initiated efforts with their attorney and CPA to help provide a unified strategy that encompassed their full range of issues. We now update their plan annually or as often as Doug and Claire feel the need. With this solid planning in place, Doug and Claire are both comfortable and confident in their ability to take extended trips around the U.S and overseas, to sometimes take their children and grandchildren along with them, and to make strategic gifts to their family and favorite charities.
Samantha was approaching the conclusion of a long, successful legal career. She had some health issues and needed to determine when she could retire. We developed a long-term financial plan for Samantha that served as the basis for her decision to pursue a personal coaching career - a passion she had long desired to explore and that could provide more personal satisfaction with less stress. With some invigorating training behind her, she is now serving as a personal coach to some of the attorneys she used to work with. On the personal side, she bought a small house for her daughter to live near her. And with her new free time, she decided to participate in Lodestar's philanthropic trip, finding a deep sense of satisfaction, along with the exhilaration of foreign travel.
Susan was recently widowed when she was referred to our service. Having focused her attention on her husband's health needs for the past year she was experiencing a highly emotional and challenging task in trying to gain control of various elements of her personal finances. Through a series of fact finding and strategy planning meetings, we were able to identify and implement the action steps required to achieve financial stability. With the assistance of a CPA, a tax-efficient plan was developed to maintain a desired level of consistently available cash flow. The guidance from an Estate Planning attorney proved beneficial in educating Susan's adult children regarding her wishes for passing family assets to future generations and assuring proper documentation of distribution plans. The inclusion of multiple generations in the planning process provided peace of mind to the entire family.
John is a successful executive with a large Fortune 500 company who historically has invested on his own. However, after coming to the realization that he didn't have the time required to organize, research and manage his investments to the level that they required, he sought out our Wealth Management services. In addition to developing a coordinated, ongoing, active investment strategy between all of his investment holdings, we also created a comprehensive financial plan for him and his wife. This plan incorporated the various real estate properties, retirement accounts, stock options, pension plans, and brokerage accounts that their family owns. As a result of this analysis, we were able to help him and his wife explore the various lifestyle options that their level of wealth provided them, including possible early retirement, a second home, and opportunities to give back to the community through gifts of time and money.