Saturday, 16 January 2021
Based in St. Louis, Moneta Group focuses on providing money management services to high net worth individuals and families. This employee-owned firm operates on a fee-only basis, and notably has no minimum investment requirement. Moneta Group has 300 employees and its website boasts a client-to-advisor ratio of 48 to 1, which it claims offers a more personal touch than the industry standard of 100 to 1.
All information included in this profile is accurate as of March 6, 2020. For more information, please consult Moneta Group’s website.
| Assets under management: $20,257,468,937 | |
| Minimum investment: $0 | |
| Fee structure: A negotiable percentage of assets under management, usually ranging between 50 and 100 basis points, but not exceeding 2.0% | |
| Headquarters location: | 100 South Brentwood Blvd. St. Louis, MO 63105 https://monetagroup.com/ 314-726-2300 |
Moneta Group celebrated its 150-year anniversary in 2019, tracing its roots back to the 1869 foundation of the Home Life Insurance Company. Over time, the company has gone through a series of rebrands and expansions, finally adopting the name Moneta Group in 1988. Today the firm is wholly employee owned. It has 300 employees, 120 of which are investment advisers.
The bulk of Moneta Group’s clients are high net worth individuals and families, which the firm refers to as “Family CFOs.” Moneta says 80% of its business is wealth management for Family CFOs, while the balance is a combination of retirement plan consulting and the firm’s family office.
Moneta Group requires no account minimums for its own clients. However, some of the third-party investment management partners Moneta works with, like Charles Schwab, may have their own account minimums.
Moneta Group offers a full suite of money management services, and the company prides itself on offering a full financial management plan tailored to each Family CFO client. The Family CFO concept is Moneta’s comprehensive approach to managing all aspects of an individual’s or a family’s financial planning needs, with additional consulting services provided as needed. Basically, Moneta claims that it offers its clients all the services that a chief financial officer would offer to a company.
Moneta goes through a process of setting you up with a Partner Team, which reviews your goals and risk tolerance. This team is then responsible for putting together an investing plan and portfolio, which includes a review of performance expectations and economic and tax considerations.
This process delivers each client a unique investment portfolio, closely tailored to their needs. The partner team periodically reviews the portfolio, your ongoing situation and your changing financial goals and changes your investment allocations as needed.
Moneta uses both discretionary and non-discretionary approaches. Under the discretionary approach, Moneta makes some investment choices without client approval; however, it’s possible to place restrictions on the types of investments and strategies that can be followed by talking to your advisor and team. Under the non-discretionary approach, the client signs off on all investment decisions.
Partner teams will work with clients to determine the best approach and figure out if it makes sense to use a discretionary approach, a non-discretionary approach or a combination of both.
When considering portfolio construction, Moneta focuses on three main asset classes:
Moneta also uses third parties to manage some of its investments, including Schwab Intelligent Portfolios. However, even though Moneta uses Schwab, the program is based on strategies put together by Moneta, and managed by Moneta.
Rather than having a fee table, Moneta charges fees on a client-by-client basis. In general, the fees are based on assets under management, and generally range from 50 to 100 basis points. For example, 100 basis points would represent a fee of 1.00% of assets under management, so fees generally range between 0.50% and 1.00%.
Additionally, Moneta clients might be subject to a minimum annual fee. However, that minimum fee usually doesn’t exceed 2.0% of the assets under management.
Institutional clients might have different fee arrangements, and those who are engaging in IRA rollovers might also be subject to alternate fees from their custodian.
Other fees that might be charged by Moneta might include different insurance fees related to advisors acting as licensed insurance agents, as well as additional fees for concierge services, like bill pay and money management. Clients are also responsible for the fees charged by third-party brokers and acknowledge that expense ratios and other fees might be part of their costs.
Moneta doesn’t participate in a wrap fee program, and its advisers don’t receive performance-based compensation.
As an SEC registered investment advisor, Moneta Group is required to disclose any and all material facts regarding legal action or disciplinary events that could impact your evaluation of the firm or the integrity of its team. There are no disciplinary disclosures from Moneta Group.
The first step is contacting Moneta about your interest in working with them. Moneta provides an online form that asks for basic information about your name, email, location, phone number and company, and how you discovered the website. You can write a message and send the form in.
You are then able to hold a discussion about the services you want and get assigned a Partner Team. The Partner Team will hold a series of meetings with their client to get a feel for the client’s investment goals and ongoing financial objectives. Meetings are designed to help the Partner Team put together a comprehensive plan that includes financial and money management, financial independence, tax and investment planning, as well as estate and business succession planning. Risk management is also considered during the onboarding meeting process.
Client accounts are reviewed at least annually, and more frequent reviews can be made at the client’s request. The Partner Team might also bring different items to a client’s attention, based on what’s going on and what they hope to accomplish in the future.
For those who are looking for a full-service money management company, Moneta Group might be a good choice. Those who have a high net worth or have family office and succession issues might also benefit from Moneta Group. However, the fee structure is somewhat opaque and could vary widely, depending on your total assets under management and a variety of other options and considerations. While there aren’t account minimums, some of the third parties used to manage portfolios might have their own minimums, so even so, if you don’t have a high net worth you might not benefit from the full functionality of this firm.
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Source: https://www.magnifymoney.com/blog/investing/moneta-group-investment-advisors-review-ria/
