Interview with Len Hirsh, a Senior Financial Advisor and Certified Financial Planner® (CFP®),

Signature Estate & Investment Advisors, LLC® (SEIA) is a leading, independent Registered Investment Advisory (RIA) with an office nearby in Redondo Beach’s Riviera Village. The firm offers wealth management and financial planning services to affluent individuals, families, and business owners, and the company is proud to have been recognized by many well-respected financial publications including Barron’s, Financial Times, RIA Channel, and LA Business Journal. We caught up with Len Hirsh, a senior Financial Advisor and Certified Financial Planner® (CFP®), who is a proud resident and supporter of the South Bay community. Len and his team work in a fiduciary capacity, delivering comprehensive and unbiased investment advice, and employing a team approach with an open-door policy so that clients can always reach someone at the firm with any question. After reading his recent article “25 Tips from 25 Years of Investing,” we posed the following questions to Len to learn a little more:

HOW IS SEIA DIFFERENT?

“SEIA was established in 1997 with the goal of only doing what’s best for our clients. We have guided generations of families through numerous market and economic cycles and various life changes. Accordingly, we understand priorities shift, goals evolve and unexpected needs arise, and we know that cookie-cutter investment solutions rarely get the job done. So, we incorporate a range of strategies, and we maintain the flexibility to tactically address new market challenges and opportunities as they arise. At SEIA, we offer customizable and personally crafted portfolios that incorporate our investment committee’s extensive research and thoughtful market analysis. Yet we can also retain and complement around highly-appreciated or otherwise-significant, existing stock or fund positions, and we even offer a unique ‘nondiscretionary’ approach through which clients can retain final decision-making authority.”

CAN YOU DESCRIBE YOUR PROCESS?

“When you sit down with a financial advisor, do you want that meeting to be about the advisor? Or about you? As an Accredited Investment Fiduciary, I’m always thinking about what’s best for you, and adapting our process to fit your needs – not trying to fit you into our mold.

That’s why we developed our “Client First” onboarding experience, through which we learn all about you, including your family dynamics, your interests, your risk tolerance, your special goals, and any potential threats to accomplishing those goals.

By looking at where you are now, we identify problems and find solutions that address not only your unique life circumstances, but also a range of market conditions. Picture the vibe of a boutique family office with the technology resources of an Amazon. That means you get customized investment advice, plus institutional-class strategies typically reserved for major banks.

As Certified Financial Planners, we also offer a financial plan – one that’s unique to you. You’ll see a clear snapshot of where you stand, including your projected portfolio growth and year-over-year cash-flow. And with our industry-leading financial-planning software, we can help you see potential pitfalls ahead, to help ensure you don’t outlive your money, and that even have some left over for your children and the charities you care about.

With our “Scenario Analysis” process, we can help you look at the potential financial impact of various life decisions, such as downsizing your home, moving to a state with no income tax, delaying social security, or converting traditional IRA assets to a Roth IRA before you’re required to start withdrawing money at age 72. This will also guide us in determining which allocation makes the most sense for you, both now and later in life.

Finally, in the ongoing implementation and monitoring steps, everything we do is designed to help you achieve freedom, freedom from worrying about your finances and whether you’re on track, so that you can sleep well at night. We know you want to live an active, fulfilling lifestyle, and to focus on enjoying the finer things you’ve worked so hard to achieve. Our goal is to help you do that.

WHAT ARE SOME UNIQUE STRATEGIES SEIA HAS ACCESS TO?

“Clients need advisors with the tools to address not only their unique life circumstances but also a range of market conditions. We like to think that we have the vibe of a boutique family office, but the technology and resources of an Amazon. In other words, our relationships with our clients are well-developed because we focus on identifying problems and finding solutions, often among institutional-class strategies typically reserved for major banks and wire-houses.

Certainly, every client situation is different, but with equity valuations feeling swollen and fixed income interest rates at historic lows, a lot of what we’re doing right now is working on ways to optimize the constituent pieces of clients’ portfolios, and we have a menu of offerings. For example, in a typical 60/40 (equity/bond) portfolio, we’ll seek to improve yield (and bring down market correlation) on the 40% in bonds by partially pivoting into things like direct lending, middle-market lending, private credit, private real estate and/or insurance-linked securities (ILS). With the 60% in equities, we can swap in some noncorrelated, small-cap growth exposure through private equity funds that invested early in companies like SpaceX, Palantir and Chargepoint. Or we can offer downside protection via a cap-and-cushion hedging approach using things like defined-outcome ETFs (exchange-traded funds), structured notes, or option overlays. It all depends on a client’s goals and needs.”

WHAT IS THE BIGGEST BENEFIT YOUR CLIENTS GAIN FROM WORKING WITH SEIA?

“Novice investors might evaluate an advisor’s worth by simply comparing portfolio performance to that of a market index. Our clients, on the other hand, have learned that successful advisors can add three to four percentage points (known as advisor alpha) over time—and especially in moments of crisis—through thoughtful advice on asset allocation, portfolio-rebalancing, spending/ withdrawal strategies, product cost-cutting, and behavioral coaching around investors’ emotional tendencies.”

WHAT HAS BEEN A SURPRISING SOURCE OF NEW BUSINESS?

“We’re now considered experts in managing highly-appreciated, concentrated stock positions, which seem commonplace after this incredible bull market run. We have a range of solutions based on tax appetite, including completion portfolios (a multiyear process of methodically triggering capital gains while actively tax-loss harvesting and diversifying into a customizable and complementary portfolio), exchange funds (diversification into broad market exposure without triggering capital gains), qualified opportunity zone funds (investing in a community-development program while delaying taxes on realized gains) and options-hedging strategies (covered calls or costless collars) that keep low-basis shares from getting called away.”

DO YOU HAVE RELATIONSHIPS WITH OTHER PROFESSIONALS THAT BENEFIT YOUR CLIENTS?

“As longtime South Bay residents and business owners, we have worked with many local professionals. When it comes to managing clients’ wealth, we regularly function as the quarterback among a collaborative team of CPAs, attorneys, Realtors and other trusted advisors.”

You can learn more about Len Hirsh and Signature Estate & Investment Advisors (SEIA) by clicking here, and you can feel free to schedule a complimentary, introductory meeting, phone call, or Zoom conference with Len and his team by clicking here.

Disclaimer: Opinions expressed here are the authors’ and do not necessarily represent the opinions of SEIA. Third-party rankings or recognition from rating services or publications are no guarantee of future investment success. These ratings should not be construed as an endorsement of the Advisor by any client. Nor are they representative of any one client’s evaluation or experience. Additional important information can be found at seia.com/disclosures. SEIA is an SEC-registered investment adviser; however, such registration does not imply a certain level of skill or training and no inference to the contrary should be made. Securities offered through Royal Alliance Associates, Inc. (RAA) member FINRA/SIPC. Investment advisory services offered through SEIA, 2121 Avenue of the Stars, Suite 1600, Los Angeles, CA 90067, 310-712-2323. RAA is separately owned and other entities and/or marketing names, products or services referenced here are independent of RAA. (CA Ins. License Len Hirsh #0L46886).

You can learn more about Len Hirsh and Signature Estate & Investment Advisors (SEIA) by clicking here, and you can feel free to schedule a complimentary, introductory meeting, phone call, or Zoom conference with Len and his team by clicking here.

Disclaimer: Opinions expressed here are the authors’ and do not necessarily represent the opinions of SEIA. Investing involves risk including the potential loss of principal. No investment strategy can guarantee a profit or protect against loss. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Please note that individual situations can vary. Therefore, the information presented here should only be relied upon when coordinated with individual professional advice. Additional important information can be found at seia.com/disclosures. SEIA is an SEC‐registered investment adviser; however, such registration does not imply a certain level of skill or training and no inference to the contrary should be made. Securities offered through Royal Alliance Associates, Inc. (RAA) member FINRA/SIPC. Investment advisory services offered through SEIA, 2121 Avenue of the Stars, Suite 1600, Los Angeles, CA 90067, 310‐712‐2323. RAA is separately owned and other entities and/or marketing names, products or services referenced here are independent of RAA. (CA Ins. License Len Hirsh #0L46886).

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