Case Studies
Tom and Julie – Planning for a loved one with special needs.
Does This Sound Like You?
Key Concerns:
Long term wealth accumulation
Financially, protecting their Son with special needs
Ages:
43 and 42
Summary:
Tom and Julie love their son Jack and want to make sure he is financially secure, even when they’re gone. Their son has special needs, and they are looking for a firm that can give them peace of mind that Jack will be cared for.
Tom and Julie are both successful professionals with hectic schedules associated with their professional careers. Tom and Julie are also proud parents of their son Jack, who has autism. Tom and Julie want to protect Jack’s financial future, all while worrying about their own savings, career advancement, and lifestyle goals. Tom and Julie are fiercely protective of their son, and work as hard as they do to make sure his life is as fulfilling as it can be.
Tom and Julie had a long search for the right professionals who had the credentials and care to map out their future, and more importantly their Sons’. Black Diamond prides itself on its attention to detail, recognizing that even the smallest mistake for a family planning for a child with special needs can be financially devastating. Success stems from coordinating a team of professionals to ensure account titling, estate documents, and beneficiary designations are always up to date and accurate, and that diligence is the only way to make sure Jack’s financial future is secured.
Tom and Julie are now more confident focusing on their careers because they know that their partnership with the right advisory practice will protect Tom from the risks they don’t see or anticipate. They are happy they found a special relationship with a firm that specializes in special needs planning.
Please Note: The above Case Study is hypothetical and does not involve an actual client. Clients and prospective clients could experience different results while engaged with BDFS capital.
Mark and Lori – Approaching retirement in a new State.
Does This Sound Like You?
Key Concerns:
Social security timing
Taxes in retirement
Market risk
Ages:
63 and 64
Summary:
After successful careers Mark and Lori are looking to secure their golden years by making the right choices about social security, income taxes and market risk.
Mark and Lori had successful careers in New York state as a teacher and business owner. They’ve happily relocated to Delaware, and are looking forward to retirement. With hard work they accumulated several million dollars in retirement assets, a sizable pension, and a large portfolio of taxable investments. Feeling overwhelmed by pension choices, starting social security, and the risk in their investment accounts, and taxes in retirement, they looked for an advisory firm that could help.
At Black Diamond we understand that starting retirement is incredibly stressful, and that mistakes at the start of your retirement can have a dramatically negative affect on how enjoyable this period of our clients lives will be. Mark and Lori’s main concerns were not paying too much in income taxes, making smart choices with social security, and limiting market risk. Black Diamond prides itself on navigating these sensitive issues, and through our process, we are confident that clients like Mark and Lori are far more confident about their retirement.
With Black Diamond, you get more than just an investment Manager. We understand that there is so much more to wealth management than what’s in your retirement accounts. We pride ourselves on partnering with our clients to help them put their retirement puzzle pieces, like social security, investments and income taxes, together. After working with Black Diamond, our clients, know the full picture because we’ve fit the puzzle pieces together.
Please Note: The above Case Study is hypothetical and does not involve an actual client. Clients and prospective clients could experience different results while engaged with BDFS capital.
Mike and Cynthia – Philanthropy and intergenerational wealth planning.
Does This Sound Like You?
Key Concerns:
Charitable Planning
Inter-generational wealth transfer
Ages:
68 and 67
Summary:
Mike and Cynthia sit at the head of a loving family. Having successful careers as have a responsible business owner’s allowed Mike and Cynthia to save significant wealth. They’ve always been very deeply connected to their community, and want their money to leave a lasting legacy. Mike and Cynthia also want their family involved in this process so their heirs are ready to be responsible with money in the future.
Mike and Cynthia are extremely capable people but wanted to partner with an advisory firm to lead family meetings about family wealth and charitable giving. Black Diamond recognizes that our time might be finite, but our money can have an impact forever. We enjoy partnering with families in situations like this to make the process of communication, tax analysis, and charity selection more manageable and easy. It is our hope that our relationship with all generations of the family makes planning more efficient and impactful, and most importantly gives everyone a central perspective on how their family wealth can help the causes they care about in their community.
Mike and Cynthia are thrilled that they’ve found Black Diamond to sit on the same side of the table and craft strategies that optimize their gifts and prepare the next generation of their family to have a perpetual impact in the things they care about. We have the tools to make gifts and grants of any size and to make the shift of generational wealth as smooth as possible.
Please Note: The above Case Study is hypothetical and does not involve an actual client. Clients and prospective clients could experience different results while engaged with BDFS capital.
Jared and Lance - Planning for reduced taxes and retaining employees.
Does This Sound Like You?
Key Concerns:
Current income taxation
Employee retention
Employer-sponsored retirement plans
Ages:
36 and 34
Summary:
Running a successful business is hard enough on its own. Jared and Lance recognize that their employees are vital to their long term success, and they want to make sure their future, and their employees futures are secure.
Jared and Lance run a successful law firm with multiple associates. They know that larger firms are always looking to hire talented attorneys away from smaller practices. Jared and Lance want to know how they can keep employees in the practice, while also benefiting personally from a tax perspective. They wanted to look into Employer-sponsored retirement plans to achieve these objectives.
Advisor’s at Black Diamond understand the value of employees to any successful business, and also how important income taxation is in the employer-sponsored retirement planning process. Through extensive dialogue, we were able to understand from Jared and Lance, that they were most concerned with income tax minimization, but as a secondary concern, they wanted to use the practice’s resources to prepare their employees for retirement and keep them in the practice.
We understand that resources are finite and that ERISA is an incredibly complex set of rules that all plan sponsors need to understand. We pride ourselves in our ability to integrate the complex tax rules, cash-flow considerations, and human resources and education elements that are paramount to employee retention. We bring our expertise to the table to streamline the retirement planning process, and we also work with our Plan Sponsors, Accountants, and Third-Party administrators to create the most efficient retirement plan. 401K, 403b, 457, Cash Balance Pensions, DB pensions, Simple IRA’s, SEP IRA’s and Solo 401k’s are all unique planning tools we enjoy sharing with our clients. Jared and Lance were thrilled with our process, and now have effective retention and tax-efficient retirement plan in place.
Please Note: The above Case Study is hypothetical and does not involve an actual client. Clients and prospective clients could experience different results while engaged with BDFS capital.
Jane – Wealth management after losing a loved one.
Does This Sound Like You?
Key Concerns:
Stress of managing household
Coping with the loss of a loved one
Charity
Ages:
63
Summary:
Coping with the loss of her husband while being thrust into the position of the financial decision maker is daunting. Jane was looking for a firm to simplify the process and partner with her in the future.
Jane and her husband Richard ran a successful business, while also working as executives in the non-profit community, and were avid philanthropic contributors. They were living a wonderful life. They had a business worth more than 6 figures, retirement accounts totaling a million dollars, and everything was on track. Richard handled many of the personal finances, while Jane focused on the business. Sadly, Richard passed away rather suddenly, and Jane was forced with making decisions about her personal finances and her business in a very short period of time.
Jane is an incredibly competent and strong person, and expected incredibly strong and competent advisers to help navigate the financial loss of her husband, the sale of the business and the new responsibility of running the personal financial household. At Black Diamond we understand that this is an incredibly stressful period for Widow’s and Widowers, and we also understand that there are countless financial decisions that, handled incorrectly, cost people large sums of money. Helping clients thrust into running the financial household by outlining and mapping the complexities of wealth management is something we pride ourselves in.
Jane now has a partner she can bounce ideas off of, and trusts to look out for her best interest. She was happy to avoid the sales culture that many financial firms offer. Confident in her decisions, she is now actively leveraging her resources to provide as much impact on the charities she cares about as she can.
Please Note: The above Case Study is hypothetical and does not involve an actual client. Clients and prospective clients could experience different results while engaged with BDFS capital.
