In a world of an alphabet soup of acronyms, please let me apologize in advance for throwing another series of acronyms your way!

Here at Fiat Wealth Management, our Fiat Family is very excited to be making the leap to becoming our own RIA. Rather than being IAR’s of another RIA, we will have IAR’s of Fiat’s very own RIA. Confused yet? Please allow me to explain….

Let’s start with what each of these first two acronyms actually entails:

RIA > Registered Investment Advisor

Simple Definition:

Regulated under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, Registered Investment Advisors (RIAs) are defined as professionals that manage the assets of clients — usually individuals, but sometimes institutional investors, too — and offer investment counsel. So officially they're firms, not people, though an RIA firm could in fact be a one-person operation. (https://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-a-registered-investment-advisor-ria)

A more detailed definition can be found here: For more information, click here!

IAR > Investment Advisory Representative

Simple Definition:

The financial professionals who work for RIAs are technically known as investment advisor representatives (IAR). And those firms can employ one IAR or dozens of them.

Historically, Fiat Wealth Management has chosen to utilize external RIA’s and the back office of those external RIA’s in handling compliance decisions and communicating with a third-party custodian (TD Ameritrade in our case). We are not making this transition because we are unhappy with our current relationship or past experiences with previous RIA’s - we have had quite a positive experience. We are just at a time and place where this makes the most sense.

Now that we have that out of the way, let’s get to our ‘Why?’

Why: External

The reason we have decided to make the transition from utilizing the back office of another RIA to our own is twofold.  First - it will benefit what we call our ‘external family’ - the families and clients we serve. This will also benefit our ‘internal family’ - our internal team and their families.

Let’s start with our external family, there are many reasons that this can benefit our clients. We will simplify and focus on two:

1)   Long Term Stability

The fact that Fiat Wealth Management has grown to a size to be considered a ‘large adviser’ by SEC standards speaks to the long-term stability of this firm. Most of the individuals and families exploring Fiat Wealth Management as a partner in building their financial plans are not looking for taking large amounts of risk and hunting for ‘home runs’.

They are looking for a long-term partner that will see them through the remainder of their lives and all of the ups and downs we are sure to encounter.

2)   Control

This is a large positive in this choice. We have control over any changes made in the future, on a large-scale level, to ensure it is in the best interest of our clients. A perfect example would be a decision for an external RIA or custodian to decide to impose a $150 account fee on all accounts. As our own RIA - we are in control of making the ultimate decision on whether that happens to the clients we serve. The phrase ‘the buck stops here’ comes to mind.

If something like this were to happen, we would make the decision and we would answer to our clients. That wouldn’t be a decision made in the boardroom of people that don’t directly work with our clients. If our clients were unhappy, they at least know they are talking directly to the ultimate decision-makers. And here at Fiat, one of our top priorities is to listen to our clients.

This is also a positive transition for our internal family - the team that serves our external families.

Why: Internal Growth

1)   This better fits our own internal model for growth. If you pay attention to the historical trajectory of Fiat Wealth Management, you will see the growth of our internal team. You will likely come to the conclusion that we decided at some point that we can have more impact by teaching our approach to a team of advisors rather than relying on the bandwidth of two founders. This shift to our own RIA supports that model of growth in a much bigger way.

2)   This gives us a direct relationship with some of our key partners and will allow us to streamline many of our processes. One primary example is our current custodian, TD Ameritrade. This will allow us to communicate directly with TD Ameritrade rather than communicating through a middle person. We will also have the opportunity to choose our performance reporting software and how to design that system.

In conclusion, there are SEVERAL reasons we are choosing to set up our own RIA, those listed here are just a few of many.  We believe this is the best decision for our clients, our team, and Fiat Wealth Management as a whole.

We will continue to be the same group of people serving our families, who will benefit from the potential for more enhanced processes and a better client experience.

Investment advisory services offered through Foundations Investment Advisors, LLC, an SEC registered investment adviser. This site is published for residents of the United States only.