Abacus Wealth Partners

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Who is Abacus?
At Abacus, we use comprehensive financial analysis and time-tested financial strategies to create an individually tailored plan that helps our clients maximize their financial wealth and achieve their most important, personal goals. Because we are fee-only and independent of any major financial services company, our advice is completely objective and our choices of planning strategies and financial instruments are unlimited.

While we have strategic partnerships with some of the largest financial institutions in the world, we are an independent wealth management firm. In selecting new clients, we look for individuals who are dedicated long-term investors, and for whom we can have the most impact on the well-being of their finances and on the larger communities their lives touch.
Our clients enjoy the peace of mind that comes from our dedication to their life's passions. We strive to help each of our clients achieve balance in their lives and experience true financial freedom.

Our Mission

We deliver exceptional wealth management and investment advice to clients with relationships based on trust, open communication, and integrity. Our clients are making the best use of their financial, human, and emotional resources while pursuing their life's passions.
The following core values help guide us in fulfilling that mission.

There exists a generosity of spirit among our staff, with clients and within our communities.
Our advisors use their planning skills to assist clients with tax-intelligent philanthropic strategy.
We donate a minimum of five percent of our annual profits to charity.

We deliver exemplary wealth management services using consistent processes delivered to all clients with industry-leading skill and personalized attention.
Our clients and staff spend the majority of their time taking advantage of their genius qualities and maximizing their professional and personal growth.

We are a cooperative community acting as one team, showing respect for each other and clients.
We act with the utmost integrity in our client relationships, including always putting the clients' interest first and doing what we say we will do.
We respect the value of all life, and as such, will attempt to invest in a manner that alleviates suffering and avoids environmental degradation.
We will make every attempt to minimize our firm's environmental impact by utilizing recycling, telecommuting, and electronic communication wherever practical.

Our firm selects new clients who are actively engaged in improving themselves and the world through their work, philanthropy, relationships, and personal growth endeavors.
Our staff is committed to their own personal growth and to taking actions that contribute to the world's physical sustainability and spiritual progress.
Our advice extends to the non-financial goals that will contribute the most to our clients' fulfillment and well-being.

Part of our advice includes finding ways to reduce spending and develop realistic and achievable future goals for our clients so that their long-term financial plans can more easily succeed with less stress and effort in the present.
We strive for a true work/life balance for our employees (and our clients), understanding that you can fail by growing too fast and working too hard.

Result: Schedule a meeting with an Abacus advisor or decide there isn't a good fit
Hiring a financial advisor may be one of the most important decisions you'll ever make. Your relationship with a financial advisor can last decades, sometimes even through multiple generations. Our Client Intake Director can help you decide if Abacus is a good fit for you and your family.
Your initial conversation will last between 5-30 minutes, and you should be prepared to discuss the value of your assets, debts and income. Using the information gained in this discussion, a meeting will be scheduled with the best Abacus advisor for your particular situation. This may not be the closest advisor geographically, but instead will be an advisor who specializes in clients like you.
To get the process started, either fill out the form below or take Brent Kessel's money archetype quiz. Of course, if you prefer, you can always call our office at (888) 422-2287.

Result: Signing a client agreement letter
In this meeting, which may be over the phone or in-person depending on the complexity of your situation, an Abacus advisor will comprehensively review your situation and answer any investment or planning questions you may have, as well as determine what Abacus services will best serve you. For most clients, a single meeting will suffice, but for some clients with complicated situations, several meetings may be needed.
Some documents to bring (You may not have all of these, that's OK):

The most important attribute of a successful financial advisory relationship is your trust in the people providing the advice. In addition to your "gut feel," there are many important questions relating to education, regulatory history, areas of specialty, and compensation that should be asked. Here is a set of interview questions created by an industry association that focuses on protecting consumers' rights by promoting Fee-Only financial planning that you may wish to ask potential advisors. We've included both a blank version to give to other advisors you may be speaking to, and a version with Abacus' answers completed:

Your Abacus advisor can discuss any of our answers in your initial meeting.
At this point, if you wish to engage us as your wealth advisor, you will sign the client agreement letter (or "CAL"), which is the legal contract. Your Abacus advisor can take you section by section through the CAL so that you are comfortable with all of the terms in the agreement.

Step 3) Sign Account forms and additional data collection

Once we have a signed CAL, we will use the data you provided to pre-fill your new account forms. If we are missing any data not provided in the initial meeting, our staff will work with you and/or your other professionals to collect the information we need. When we have all the data, we will send you the pre-filled forms for your signature. When we receive these signed forms back from you, we will begin the process of transferring your assets from your old accounts into your Abacus accounts.

Step 4) Investment Policy and Financial planning meetings

Depending on the services we are providing, there will be additional conversations and meetings. At the simplest, you will have one more conversation where you agree on an investment allocation that meets your long-term financial goals. For our clients with more complex situations, we may meet with your estate attorneys and CPA and/or deliver a comprehensive "enough for life" report. (Please read our Wealth Management page for more information)

Regularly named by Worth magazine as one of the countrys top 100 wealth advisors, Spencer Sherman is the CEO and co-founder of Abacus Wealth Partners.
Spencer is the author of the bestselling book, The Cure for Money Madness (Random House, 2009). He is widely quoted in the press including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times. He lectures and has appeared as an expert on CNN, CNBC, Fox Business News and NPR.
He received his bachelor's degree in economics from Brandeis University (Phi Beta Kappa), was awarded an M.B.A. in Finance from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 1987, and the CFP designation in 1990. He has over 20 years of experience as a certified financial planner and wealth advisor.
Spencer is a member of our Investment Commitee.

Brent Kessel is the Chief Investment Officer of Abacus Wealth Partners, as well as its co-founder. Brent has been named one of the top financial advisors in the U.S. by Worth magazine multiple times. As a Certified Financial Planner, Kessel has counseled multi-millionaires as well as corporate and non-profit clients on portfolio management, wealth preservation and longevity, and management of real estate and family business assets, and leads the Abacus Investment Committee.
Kessel has a degree in economics with a minor in psychology from UCLA. An accomplished public speaker, Brent has spoken at financial planning industry conferences around the U.S., the LA Times Investment Strategies conference, leading personal development centers on both coasts, at seminars sponsored by Young Presidents Organization (YPO), and has appeared on the CBS Early Show, ABC News, and in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Los Angeles Times. His book, It's Not About The Money (HarperCollins, 2008), was named one of Kiplingers Top Five Business Books of the Year.
Brent is a member of our Investment Commitee.

Jason Cole provides comprehensive wealth management services to a diverse clientele including physicians, business owners, executives, athletes, and non-profit endowments. With both an investment and accounting background, Jason advises his clients on complex income, estate and charitable tax planning techniques while also specializing in expanding the firm's exposure to both private equity and privately-held real estate.

Jason is frequently quoted in the national print media. He was named to the 2009 Philadelphia Business Journals 40 under 40. He was recently named as a Trustee and Investment Committee member of the Jewish Community Foundation (JCF) of Southern New Jersey (SNJ), and asked to serve on the Advisory Board of SmartCEO magazine.
Jason is a member of our Investment Commitee.

Greg Aloia brings his legal background and decades of insurance, estate planning and pension consulting experience to provide wealth management advice to individuals, business owners, foundations and pension plan clients. Working together with accountants, estate planners, attorneys, and insurance agents, Greg's aim is to help clients achieve their personal, professional, and financial goals.

Tom O'Connor advises clients with respect to financial and investment issues, helping clients use money to craft rich and meaningful lives for themselves and their loved ones. Tom also helps set direction for the firm's financial planning and investment advisory services.
Tom is a Certified Financial Planner and a Chartered Financial Analyst. Tom earned an MBA from the University of Chicago with a dual concentration in Finance and Statistics, and earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from Purdue University.
Tom has over 25 years of experience helping individuals bring their financial resources into better alignment with their goals. He has worked with a number of advisory firms, including his role as Partner with a national firm since acquired by Goldman Sachs.
Tom is a member of the Financial Planning Association, the CFA Institute, and the Orange County Society of Investment Managers. He participates in The Nazrudin Project, a national think tank addressing the emotional side of money issues.
Tom is a member of our Investment Commitee.

Barbara Wolf spent ten years in corporate finance primarily at Citigroup and another ten years managing a medical business prior to entering the fee-only world of investment management. She has been providing investment management services since 2000. Barbara is a graduate of Smith College with a dual major in Government and Economics and an MBA from the Stern School of New York University with a concentration in Finance.
Barbara is a member of the Philadelphia Estate Planning Council and the Sustainable Business Network of Philadelphia.

Barrett has been published in several trade publications and contributes a monthly blog to the financial vitamin website. Barrett has led numerous workshops that teach investors how to lower their costs and improve their returns as well as how to integrate their social and environmental concerns without harming returns.
Barrett has volunteered since 2006 for The Trevor Project, a philanthropic organization established to promote acceptance of GLBT teenagers and to aid in their suicide prevention.

Michelle Dench spent nine years in corporate banking and investments primarily at Wells Fargo. She entered the fee-only world of investment management after starting her own company, aimed at helping clients create a sustainable financial future. Michelle is a graduate of Fisher College with a major in Business Management.
In addition to working with clients designing sustainable financial plans, Michelle leads workshops in the bay area to help people create a harmonious relationship with money. She teaches participants how to integrate sustainable practices into their life, business, and financial plans.

Pat Jennerjohn helps clients gain "financial confidence" by seeing how money is here to support and serve them. Pat's advice and insight have been featured in the San Francisco Chronicle, the Oakland Tribune, and www.money.com, among others.
In addition to designing individualized financial plans and managing portfolios, Pat leads unique classes in behavioral finance for her clients and others. She teaches participants how to avoid falling into mental traps that lead to financial loss.

Pat is a member of the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors (NAPFA), which is the governing association for fee-only financial planners, as well as the Financial Planning Association. A Certified Financial Planner practitioner, Pat earned her MBA in Finance from California State University, Hayward.

What about Sustainable Investing (vs. Socially Responsible Investing SRI)?
What about the economic impact of dwindling oil supplies, overpopulation, scarce water resources and climate change?
Will investment in global equities continue to be prudent in the long term?
What alternatives to conventional stocks and bonds are available to Abacus clients for principal preservation and growth?

Do you give out references from existing clients? If so, could you provide me with a few?
How many times does Abacus rebalance client accounts? Monthly? Weekly? Does rebalancing lead to changes in the assets in client accounts?
Are all accounts reviewed individually or is the review done more globally?

We engage in Sustainable Investing, primarily by investing in environmentally screened, globally diversified passive mutual funds which both punish environmental polluters and reward those companies who are stewards of our environment.
We invest pursuant to academic and objective research, which overwhelmingly supports using a diverse mix of passive funds (which are similar to index funds) to achieve high returns, low volatility, and low cost. We control risk through very broad diversification and careful asset class weighting. We do not attempt to identify in advance which securities, sectors, or asset classes may outperform others. We do not attempt to forecast the direction, magnitude, or duration of economic trends. We do examine how the asset allocations we have chosen for clients may behave in various economic scenarios or environments so that we are as prepared as possible for whatever events may occur in the future. One major way in which we deviate from the purely academic approach is in implementing social screening, as mentioned above. back to top

Much of the investment industry defines research as the process of forming forecasts about securities, sectors, asset classes, and/or economic conditions by examining current conditions or considering the potential results of hypothesized future events or conditions. We define research as an examination of what has actually occurred in the past (e.g. with respect to such things as security returns, asset class returns, whether active management adds value over time, the effects of transaction costs and the effects of various rebalancing schemes), with an eye towards understanding how risk and return can be harnessed for results consistent with organizational goals and constraints.
For example, early research showed that the addition of a risky asset to a portfolio could actually reduce portfolio volatility and enhance returns. Later research gave us the Capital Asset Pricing Model, a valuable model of stock returns that dominated for many years. In the early 1990s the three-factor model suggested that greater explanatory power could be achieved by examining exposure to small stocks vs. large stocks, to value stocks vs. growth stocks, and to stocks overall vs. bonds or other assets. This research forms the academic foundation for our work.
The investment manager we use primarily for stock investments has extremely close ties with faculty of The University of Chicago, the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and other ground-breaking researchers nationwide. They use mutual funds known as passive funds (an incremental but important improvement on index funds) to construct actual portfolios. back to top

The biggest challenge for clients is to stay committed to a disciplined investment strategy during market corrections. An Abacus investor with more than 30% exposure to the stock market should be willing to hold their investments for at least five years, while fixed income investments ought to be held for at least two years. A globally-diversified sustainable stock strategy such as the one Abacus employs has done better than bank savings accounts, CD's, and bonds over every ten year period in the last 80 years, with the exception of one: investing on the eve of the Great Depression. And yet even if one was unlucky enough to invest on that fateful day, fifteen years later, stocks had outperformed bonds. The shorter the time period, the more volatile stocks are. The longer the time period, the more likely it is that an investor doesn't run out of money. back to top

Sustainable Investing is not a sideshow for us, but is central to how we manage portfolios for the majority of our clients.
The decision to use passive funds, and to diversify very broadly (including very small firms and emerging markets), is, in itself socially conscious. The passive fund approach results in our providing capital to an extremely broad cross-section of creative people worldwide. Rather than deciding in advance which peoples endeavors are a better bet than others, we offer funds proportionately to all (or at least to those with access to public capital markets), and academic research indicates this is the best approach.
In February 2008, our clients and our firm provided the seed funding for the first environmentally screened, industry neutral, globally diversified passive (index) equity funds in the marketplace. Please contact one of our advisors for details about this exciting new entry into the sustainable investing marketplace.
We are actively seeking to expand the positive good we can express in the world through the allocation of our clients funds, as we believe this reduces legal and regulatory risk, expresses our values, and enhances the potential for long-term, sustainable social structures and investment returns. back to top

Our clients as a group are much more aware and concerned about these issues than society as a whole. We support an intentional transition to sustainable behaviors, and are active participants in dialogue and education around these concerns. Without any clear direction from political leaders or a clear technology solution (perhaps until taxes or scarcity push oil prices so high that alternatives become irresistible), our best approach is to diversify as broadly as possible, and to invest proactively in pursuit of solutions to these problems. We also model for clients how we as individuals and as a company adhere to sustainable practices in all areas of our lives.
Given our profession as investment advisors and our personalities, we are optimistic about the international recognition of global warming and our dwindling energy supplies. We are becoming increasingly determined to alter the dangerous course we are currently traveling. We believe the most balanced, sane approach is to stay diversified and to assume the intelligence of the markets has already priced these negative environmental forecasts into current stock market price levels. And we cant guess whether these pessimistic forecasts will actually affect stock markets in ten or fifty years. We also have to keep in mind that the broad stock markets have been through major political, environmental and economic crises in the last 200 years and have always recovered. back to top

Thirty years ago, the US accounted for two-thirds of the worlds stock market valuation and today it accounts for only half, so it would be imprudent to avoid global equities and the diversification they provide. If anything, we will increase international equities over time as the US becomes a smaller proportion of the worlds market value. back to top

We believe strongly that real estate is an important alternative investment, because it provides both ownership of a hard asset, and an income stream. We believe commodities, as a wider base of hard assets, provide additional protection against unexpected inflation. We also consider micro-finance as an alternative asset class, although because it is not publicly traded at present we are unable to offer it as an investment vehicle for all of our clients. However, as microfinance funds become publicly traded, we will consider adding them to our investment portfolios.
We do invest in emerging market stocks, but we do not consider them an alternative investment. They are simply a class of international stocks, with different risks and rewards than stocks issued in developed nations.
Nor do we define hedge funds as alternative investments; they are simply trading strategies which make use of underlying positions (long and/or short and/or derivative) in underlying securities. Because there is no academic support for the idea that these esoteric trading strategies differ in any fundamental way from other active trading strategies which are regularly proven inferior as a whole to passive (index fund) investing, we do not make use of hedge funds. back to top

As a fee-only investment advisory firm, the only fees we are paid come directly from our clients. We do not accept any commissions, kick-backs, extravagant gifts or any other compensation from anyone other than our clients. Fees are deducted from your account on a quarterly basis. Your fees are paid in advance for the quarter based on the market value of your account on the last day of the prior quarter. Example; on 12/31/09, the balance in your account is $1,000,000. Your fees are calculated using that amount, and are deducted in January 2010 from your account to pay for our services from January 2010 to March 2010.
If you decide to terminate our services prior to 3/31/10, any unearned fees will be refunded to you on a prorated basis. back to top

Unfortunately, SEC regulations forbid us from advertising client testimonials. There are certain narrow circumstances where this information can be provided. An Abacus advisor can help determine if this is possible after your initial meeting. back to top

Using a sophisticated trading technology platform, we review client accounts every two weeks to determine if any of the asset classes have drifted too far away from the target allocation. If we determine that trades are necessary to bring your accounts back to their target allocation, your accounts go through at least two reviews by Abacus staff, including sign off by your advisor.
We do not seek your approval prior to rebalancing your account. However, when our relationship begins, you sign an Investment Policy Statement ("IPS") which serves as a directive to Abacus. back to top

Are all my accounts reviewed individually or is the review done more globally?
We generally view your accounts in total when making this determination, instead of looking at your individual accounts out of context. There are certain situations where individual accounts are reviewed separately, such as a child's education account, certain kinds of trusts, or charitable foundations. Your Abacus advisor can help determine the best structure for your individual situation. back to top

How often and when are Abacus Investment Committee members consulted regarding client accounts?
Our Investment Committee meets approximately every six weeks. The Committee focuses on firm-wide investment issues and defines which investments are acceptable for Abacus clients. The Committee does not review individual client accounts. However, every advisor is assigned to a member of the Investment Committee to review individual client situations as they arise. In addition, Abacus has multiple internal audit functions to ensure that your accounts are in line with Investment Committee directives. back to top

We generally do not publish our clients' investment returns. We do prepare a backtested model returns sheet which describes how a theoretical client would have done in past years had they been invested in our current model. Please contact an Abacus advisor to receive a copy of this document. back to top

Financial Advisor - all locations
We are always looking to add new financial advisors who believe in delivering conflict-free advice to clients. We'd love to meet you if:

You've routinely brought in $100,000 in new annual revenue in the wealth management, or a related professional service based business.
You understand the wealth management/financial planning/investment management industry, or you come from a similar industry. (e.g. CPA, estate planning, insurance).
You're working toward, or are willing to work towards achieving the CFP, CFA or CPA-PFS certification.
You're literate in investments, insurance, tax and/or financial planning. (You must pass the series 65 exam or equivalent prior to employment).
You can accept variable compensation based on your success.

If you fit these minimum requirements, then you're ready for the hard part. We have two tests that you must pass.
First, you must submit your plan to build assets outside of any leads or clients given to you by Abacus. This is your chance to show us that you not only understand the marketplace and our service offering, but that you also have excellent presentation and writing skills.
Second, we have to like you. When we talk about the Abacus family, we're not speaking false platitudes. We only want to work with people that we like, trust and want to spend time with. We want people who bring enthusiasm, not just to themselves and their clients, but to their team and the firm at large. The process to become an Abacus advisor is not quick, and it involves more than one or two interviews. Be creative, impress us with your communications and don't expect a typical resume to carry you very far.