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Greenleaf: independent investment management and counsel

Independent and professionally-owned, Greenleaf serves you without conflict or corporate mandates and restrictions. The firm is unaffiliated with any bank, brokerage, investment company or business parent. We have no motivation other than serving your interests.

This enables us to recommend and execute a wide range of strategies to help you meet your objectives.

Discretionary management

As investment manager and advisor to our clients, we assume a fiduciary responsibility to act in your best interests.

We meet with you to determine what is important to you, personally and financially. We draft an investment policy statement and a long-term asset allocation target for you. Once you confirm your understanding of and  agreement with the policy statement, we then design and implement your custom investment portfolio.

We initiate the purchase and sale of the various holdings in your portfolio according to your needs. As discretionary managers, we are able to adjust holdings in your portfolios as market conditions change. All changes are clearly delineated in our regular reports to you.

This differs from how nearly all investment brokers conduct business. As non-discretionary agents, they must get approval for every change in your holdings. This can result in missed opportunities as well as increased time involvement and anxiety for the client.

For more than three decades, our clients have clearly preferred and benefited from our discretionary management.

Funds remain safely in your custodial accounts

While our clients give us permission to direct investment of your assets under our management, we do not have custody of your assets. Instead, your holdings remain with your brokerage, bank or other securities firm.

This separation of authority protects you. Only you or those to whom you grant power of attorney can access the funds in your accounts. You receive statements from us and your custodial providers, which allows to you compare and verify all changes. In addition, we reconcile our records to statements from your custodians to ensure you are properly credited for all dividends and interest.

You are also protected in another way: Most custodial firms in the United States are members of the Securities Investors Protection Corporation. Created by the federal government, the SIPC protects individual custodial account for up to $5 million should the custodian go out of business. Further, custodians usually purchase additional SIPC coverage if your holdings exceed $5 million. You should verify that all your holdings are with SIPC member firms in good standing.