Who We Are
Annex Wealth Management is an elite, privately-held, full-service advisory and wealth management firm acting as a fiduciary for individuals, families, and businesses. Annex Wealth Management has offices strategically located in Wisconsin, Illinois, and Florida.
Independence
Annex Wealth Management has set itself apart from many other investment advisory firms through its commitment to independence and providing unbiased advice.
The firm is privately-held, so its ownership structure is not obligated to a parent company such as a bank, insurance, or trust company where conflict of interest might be created. Likewise, Annex does not create any proprietary or “in-house” products to promote one investment vehicle over another.
In this regard, our team is able to remain objective in developing investment strategies and selecting investment vehicles focused on helping you achieve your goals.
What We Do
At Annex Wealth Management, we’ve assembled a team of specialists and a service model with you at the center.
- We employ leading-edge technology and our experienced Financial Planning Team to provide you with a financial plan that reflects your values, your vision and your goals
- Your portfolio will be handled by a Chartered Financial Analyst® boasting years of experience in investing institutional funds.
- Create an estate plan with your family and legacy in mind.
Communication & Education
At Annex Wealth Management, we demonstrate our belief in transparency by educating and interacting with people about critical, relevant investment and wealth management issues.
On The Air
Annex Wealth Management hosts four informative radio programs: “Money Talk” on WTMJ; “The Investment Show” on WISN; and “The Annex Wealth Management Show” on WHBY and WFSX. Senior Annex team members contribute market updates, investment trends, and answer questions related to investing and planning.
We also produce original, minute-long segments that air daily on leading Milwaukee area radio stations.
Free Workshops
We provide free workshops open to the public on key wealth management topics like “Managing Your Year-End Tax Bill” or “A Woman’s Guide To Preparing For The Unexpected” at our branch offices.
In addition, our clients can attend “Client Education Series” presentations on critical wealth management topics like Long Term Care and Medicare.
At Workplaces
Annex Wealth Management provides financial wellness education for employees and plan fiduciaries – relevant, engaging, direct communication that leads to greater confidence, greater satisfaction, and greater loyalty.
Estate & Legacy Planning
There is no “one-size-fits-all” estate plan that works for everyone. Annex Wealth Management will look at your unique circumstances to help determine the right plan for you.
Estate planning often prompts us to reflect on some of our most personal relationships and values. Our primary objective will be to provide for those people in our lives we care most about. Have we taken steps to provide for their security after we are gone? Have we organized our affairs to make the administration of our estate simple and efficient for our loved ones during a time of grieving?
Whatever your individual circumstances might be, there is a way to structure your estate plan that makes the most sense for you and your loved ones.
We’ll Help You:
- Prioritize your current status.
- Implement the most prudent plan.
- Examine your goals.
- Review and update your plan through time.
- Prepare your plan – from assigning beneficiaries to guardianship designations.
- Plan if you have an estate plan, we’ll help review it and make sure it reflects your goals and values.
Financial & Retirement Planning
Financial planning should be an ongoing process, not a product. Annex Wealth Management works with you to determine how you want to reach your goals, and plan for obstacles that may arise.
Discovery
Annex Wealth Management’s integrated financial planning process starts with an interactive, wide-ranging conversation which helps us understand you, your personal goals and priorities. To us, discovery means understanding your unique circumstances and the financial risks that concern you most.
Financial Planning
Many people come to us with a specific financial goal in mind. For some it’s a comfortable retirement, others a long-lasting legacy, still others want to begin to accumulate and grow a nest egg.
Annex Wealth Management makes your goals the foundation for ongoing financial decision making, as we progress to tax planning, estate planning, and concerns about the cost of extended care in our later years. Your relationship with your advisor is focused on helping you develop a framework to assist in complex decisionmaking and guiding you through the process of building your financial sense of security.
Portfolio Development
Through our integrated wealth management process, your advisor will work with you to develop an investment portfolio customized to your unique circumstances. Primary investment goals often range from providing retirement income to balancing the desire for growth with the fear of market volatility.
Pro-active Ongoing Management
Through our proactive core and tactical investment strategy, we work to actively manage your investment portfolio, paying attention to what is happening in the markets and the economy, assessing how it affects your portfolio, and implementing the changes that we believe are appropriate.
Monitoring
Financial planning should be an ongoing process, not a product. We will meet with you periodically to review your situation and provide consistent feedback regarding the health of your financial plan. In the meantime, we monitor your investment accounts, keeping an eye on the investments in your portfolio. Every quarter, we provide clear, concise reports to help you monitor portfolio performance.
ERISA Fiduciary Consulting
The volatile world of retirement plans is anything but clear. Keeping up with compliance; managing and understanding fees; seeking the simplest path to the best return; understanding the value – for both you and your employees – of smart investment decisions…it can all keep you from maintaining your vision.
Clarity
When it comes to Retirement Plan Services, clarity isn’t just a “nice-to-have.” Participants demand it. As a company leader, you’re expected to have it. And today’s laws require that you understand complexities like your fee structure, and determine if it’s reasonable.
Key Principals
- Communication Value
Through honest, realistic advice and education, we seek to measurably enhance your participants’ behaviors. - Costs
We give you a genuine view of how competitive your fees are, and why. We’ll also help you understand often-overlooked costs, like the cost of a plan participant being unprepared for retirement. - Compliance
After fifteen years in Retirement Plan Services, we know clarity involves understanding and communicating. We’ll help you understand your fee structure and know if your recordkeeping revenue is the same across all investment options – and if not, which ones pay more revenue and why. Then we’ll help you address and explain potential inequalities in fee structures to your plan participants.
Here To Help
The best part of working with us at Annex Wealth Management: we like this stuff. We really love helping people and companies move forward. You want clarity. We love delivering it.
We listen to our clients, working with them to determine which record keeper and record-keeping arrangement is best equipped to satisfy unique needs. As a fiduciary advisor, our investment management team delivers a documentable process to satisfy the requirements of your investment policy statement. We understand you’re looking for straightforward prices and communication – you’ll understand what you are paying and the services you’re receiving in exchange for that compensation.
Investment Management
Annex Wealth Management portfolios are built by knowledgeable former institutional portfolio managers whose sole duty at Annex Wealth Management is investment management.
The Difference
Know The Difference™ when you’re comparing Annex Wealth Management’s team to others. Annex Wealth Management portfolios are built by knowledgeable former institutional portfolio managers whose sole duty at Annex Wealth Management is investment management.
You may be asking too much if your current advisor is responsible for nurturing your relationship while strategizing and managing your investments. Other wealth management firms may get your investment plans from planners located in a far-away city or office.
A financial advisor who handles investments for his or her clients works to stay abreast of client communications, marketing, and other issues – not simply the management and performance of a client portfolio.
The Team
Annex Wealth Management believes peace and security increase when your investment decisions are made by a dedicated investment management team led by a seasoned CFA.
Our CFA is bound by an ethical code which includes adherence to investment integrity and a requirement to put interests of clients above their own. Annex Wealth Management’s active and passive investment strategies balance opportunities and costs with one person in mind – you.
Compare the difference in peer groups – Annex Wealth Management considers other institutional portfolio managers and investment professionals their peers. A financial advisor’s peer group is typically other financial advisors.
The result – a different approach, philosophy, and often, a different outcome. Annex Wealth Management strongly believes in delivering the best client service through a team dedicated to investment management instead of a single individual trying to handle every last advisory duty.
Annex Wealth Management’s Investment Policy Committee
Annex Wealth Management’s Investment Management Team meets regularly to propose and discuss new policies and review our current position in light of our investment philosophy.
Headed by Annex Wealth Management’s CFA® – Chief Investment Officer Derek Felske – the committee seeks to review portfolio holdings, performance, and vet portfolio changes.
Members of the committee interrogate each other, debate, and sometimes disagree; but drawing on and conferring with collective intelligence and insights creates a more informed, wiser investment philosophy and keeps us focused on our clients’ best interest.
Actively Managed Mutual Funds
We will use actively managed mutual funds when we’ve identified “best of breed” active managers that we believe can outperform comparable index funds on a risk-adjusted basis. We prefer mutual funds for asset classes that comprise less efficient areas of the market. The higher expense ratio of the actively managed funds may be justified by their opportunity to outperform comparable ETFs or index mutual funds. We will use ETFs for asset classes that are very efficient, because keeping portfolio costs low is very important.
Past performance may not be indicative of future results. Different types of investments involve varying degrees of risk, including the potential loss of principal. It should not be assumed that future performance of any specific investment or investment strategy recommended or undertaken by Annex Wealth Management, LLC will be profitable. Neither diversification, portfolio construction, ongoing management, or the core and tactical strategies employed by Annex Wealth Management provide a guarantee against loss of principal or any measure of expressed or implied investment return.
Tax Reduction Planning
Navigating your taxes through retirement requires a thorough understanding of you, your goals, and distribution tax laws.
Distribution Planning
Every retirement strategy should include an individualized distribution plan. We consider your distributions over time and try to determine the path to overall savings, instead of a short-sighted plan which may focus on lowering your tax bill now with consequences cascading into the future.
Roth Conversions
We help clients with traditional IRAs explore the benefits of converting to a Roth IRA and if it fits into his or her overall distribution plan.
Tax Loss Harvesting / Tax Gain Harvesting
Knowledgeable planners seek every opportunity to allow you to reach your goal.
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