L&L Financial Services, LLP was established to provide a variety of important financial services to the clients of Lawrence & Lawrence CPA Firm, as a complement to the quality accounting services the firm has provided for years. L&L Financial is dedicated to assisting clients in the development of their individual wealth management strategies and, if appropriate, to provide the necessary vehicles to implement those strategies. L&L Financial provides investment advisory services as well as individual insurance products.

We made the decision to begin offering investment and financial services for several reasons. First, many of our clients in recent years have urged us to add investment management to our existing services the CPA firm already provides. Also, many of our clients over the years have expressed to us their frustration at the lack of objective, capable service providers in the investment marketplace. Finally, our commitment to continually expand our role as a comprehensive service provider to our clients also played a major role in our decision. Indeed, our mission is not just to provide services to our clients, but also to provide solutions and resources that simplify and improve our clients’ lives.

When deciding how best to establish our investment advisory business, we kept three fundamental goals in mind. We offer a program that:

In the past few years, our firm has been approached by literally dozens of providers seeking to partner with us in developing an investment program for our clients. But only one program met each of the three critical goals listed above: the Partners+Program, a wealth management program developed by Atlanta-based investment firm Capital Directions.

Access to institutional investment vehicles: The Partners+Program provides L&L Financial access to the same investment vehicles used by many of this country’s largest institutional investors. These investments, which typically have much lower fees, expenses and realized capital gains than most retail investment vehicles, are usually available only to Fortune 500 retirement plans, trusts and endowment funds. Through the Partners+Program, however, we are able to offer our clients access to these superior investment vehicles at substantially reduced minimums.

Effective, prudent investment strategies: The focus of the Partners+Program is on “wealth management”, a strategy that seeks to provide the client with the rate of return required to achieve his or her long-term goals with the least amount of risk possible. Toward that end, the investment strategies employed in the program are designed to manage risk by diversifying across many different asset classes and investment styles, thus avoiding the risks the come from making bets on concentrated segments of the market.

Professional, objective reporting: One of the most important facets of the Partners+Program is its emphasis on providing quality performance reporting to our clients. Each quarter, our clients will receive a comprehensive investment performance report detailing both short-term and long-term rates of return, performance against market benchmarks, transaction activity, and much more. Having access to objective and concise performance information is vital to ensuring that our clients’ investment strategies continue to meet their long-term needs.

Fee-based structure: The Partners+Program is an objective, fee-based asset management program. While many retail programs are focused on selling a particular group of investment products, the Partners+Program is focused only on the investment process. Neither L&L Financial nor Capital Directions receives any compensation from brokerage firms or fund companies as part of the program. That means you don’t have to worry about any conflicts-of-interest when we recommend investment strategies to you. Our investment services through L&L Financial will be the same as our core accounting and consulting services: objective and professional.

Financial Strength & Security: Assets will be custodied at Charles Schwab & Co.’s Institutional Service Group. Schwab Institutional is the industry leader in providing custodial and brokerage services to independent investment firms. Schwab offers the highest account protection of any bank or brokerage firm, and each account at Schwab is fully insured against fraud and insolvency (fluctuation due to market conditions is not covered). Schwab has more than 200 branch offices around the country, providing our clients ready access to their accounts no matter where they are.

While this Program is well suited for a majority of our clients, we do have other investment vehicles including fixed and variable annuities (unlike those you will likely see anywhere else) and insurance products that provide for living needs, tax needs and long term care needs. Let us analyze your present investment or insurance product (no fee or cost to you) and see if they are meeting your objective.