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About Gulf Point Advisors
Gulf Point Advisors serves high net worth and ultra high net worth individuals, families, businesses, and foundations. We offer tailored investment strategies, credit and lending advisory* services, life transition planning, and family wealth preservation solutions. *Credit and lending services are provided through dedicated third-party partners. Our typical client has a net worth of greater than $10 Million and we currently manage well over $1 billion of assets.
At Gulf Point Advisors, we focus on creating customized investment portfolios that prioritize tax efficiency and cost-effectiveness, aiming to achieve high risk-adjusted returns.
At Gulf Point Advisors, we prioritize accessibility and exceptional service. By maintaining a select client base, we ensure personalized attention. Our approach includes collaborating with clients' tax, legal, and other advisors to align strategies effectively.
Our clients have access to move money in and out of their accounts through an ACH, wire, or check transaction. We can set up automatic, reoccurring instructions as well.
LPL Financial is our broker-dealer and Registered Investment Advisor custodian. As the nation’s largest independent broker/dealer*, they provide an integrated platform of technology, brokerage and investment advisory services to financial advisors.
*As reported by Financial Planning magazine, June 1996-2017, based on total revenue
Gulf Point Advisors primarily operates on a fee-based model for investment management, charging a quarterly fee based on assets under management. This approach aligns our interests with those of our clients. Additionally, our advisors, as licensed insurance agents, may occasionally offer insurance-based products, earning a commission for these services.
The best wealth managers for exiting business owners are those who specialize in "sudden wealth" and liquidity events, rather than just standard portfolio management. At Gulf Point Advisors, we recognize that selling a business is a profound life transition. We provide a collaborative, team-based approach that integrates tax-efficient investment strategies, family wealth preservation, and advanced estate planning to ensure the capital you generated from your business sustains your family's future.
While Gulf Point Advisors provides comprehensive wealth management rather than direct tax or legal advice, we work closely with your CPAs and attorneys prior to your sale. By collaborating pre-sale, we ensure your investment strategies, charitable giving vehicles, and trust structures are perfectly aligned with your tax mitigation plan during an exit.
A successful exit event requires proactive, strategic planning long before the deal is finalized. We regularly guide clients through exits ranging from $10 million to over $1 billion. As you step into this new phase, your financial focus will likely transition from building wealth to preserving it and generating steady income. Gulf Point Advisors is here to guide you through this transition. We build tailored investment strategies, collaborate with your legal and tax teams to manage capital gains, and structure a post-exit portfolio designed to support your new lifestyle and long-term legacy.
Yes. Life transition planning for business owners is a core focus at Gulf Point Advisors. Stepping away from a company you built is both a financial and emotional transition. We serve as an essential partner, bringing objective guidance and deep expertise to help simplify the complexities of your new financial reality, allowing you to focus on your next chapter.
The most critical first step after a major liquidity event is to avoid rushing into immediate financial decisions. We advise taking a "strategic pause" while securing the funds. During this time, our advisory team works with you to map out a comprehensive Family Wealth Plan which typically includes an Investment Policy Statement. We also address any immediate credit or lending needs, and design a long-term strategy tailored to your exact vision of financial success.
Compliance and Regulation
A custodian is a financial institution that holds customers’ securities for safekeeping to minimize the risk of their theft or loss. A custodian holds securities in electronic or physical form. In addition to holding securities, most custodians also offer other services, such as account administration, transaction settlements, collection of dividends and interest payments, tax support and foreign exchange. Gulf Point Advisors has selected LPL Financial as its custodian. We have the option to utilize other institutional custodians as well.
Gulf Point Advisors operates under rigorous compliance oversight. Our broker-dealer, LPL Financial, and Registered Investment Advisor, New Edge Advisors, are regulated by FINRA and the SEC, respectively. These organizations oversee various aspects of securities industry operations, ensuring adherence to all applicable regulations. Both LPL Financial and New Edge Advisors maintain dedicated compliance departments to uphold these standards.
We are required to act in a fiduciary capacity under the Advisers Act. The fiduciary rule requires advisors to act in the best interest of their clients, and to put their clients’ interests above their own. It leaves no room for advisors to conceal any potential conflict of interest, and states that all fees and commissions must clearly be disclosed in dollar form to client. Fiduciary is a much higher level of accountability than the suitability standard many financial advisors are held to, which only requires that a recommendation be deemed suitable for a client or their investment portfolio based on their needs or objectives.
Securities regulations protect your funds and your securities when you keep them at a broker/dealer. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) requires broker/dealers to deposit customer funds into a separate account, distinct from the firm’s own money.
Securities held by clients in “street name” are kept securely with the Depository Trust Company, separate and distinct from the assets of securities firms. Regulated by the SEC and the Federal Reserve, the depository is a national clearinghouse for settling trades and a custodian of securities. Regulators and independent auditors periodically review firms’ financial records to ensure that clients’ assets are accurately tracked and held separately from the firms’ own holdings.
Securities regulations protect your funds and your securities when you keep them at a broker/dealer. LPL’s regulatory obligations and controls include the following:
• LPL must identify and segregate securities by customer, and must segregate customers’ securities and funds from its proprietary business activities.
• LPL is required to maintain minimum net capital and to set aside a reserve for the benefit of its customers
• LPL’s financial statements are audited annually by an independent public accountant and those financial statements are filed regularly with the SEC.
• LPL is required to purchase a fidelity bond from an insurance company to provide a source of compensation to customers in the event of fraud or embezzlement by employees.
• LPL is required to be a member of SIPC and, for accounts held at LPL, SIPC provides account protection up to a maximum of $500,000 per customer, of which $250,000 may be claims for cash. This account protection applies when a SIPC member firm fails financially and is unable to meet obligations to securities customers, but it does not protect against losses from the rise and fall in the market value of investments. An explanatory brochure is available at www.sipc.org.
• LPL purchases an insurance policy that provides customer protection in excess of SIPC coverage up to an overall aggregate firm limit of $575,000,000, subject to conditions and limitations.
• LPL also purchases additional amounts of professional liability insurance.
Customer assets are protected by SIPC. Congress created SIPC to protect customers of member broker/dealers that may fail financially, be liquidated, or are otherwise unable to meet obligations to securities clients. If any securities or cash are missing from eligible customer accounts, SIPC steps in and, within certain limitations, works to return customers’ cash, stock, and other securities held at the firm. SIPC does not protect customers against losses from the rise and fall in the market value of investments.
The SIPC limit of $500,000 ($250,000 of this amount may be claims for cash) per account does not mean that the account will receive only up to $500,000. Rather, in an SIPC customer proceeding, the account will receive a pro-rata share of all client assets recovered in liquidation and will then will receive up to $500,000 from SIPC to make up any difference that may still exist. SIPC funds are used to make investors whole after all customer assets held at the brokerage firm have been recovered.
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