New Member Profile: Halbert Hargrove Global Advisors
Halbert Hargrove provides goals-directed planning and advising for wealthy families and individuals. To welcome them to the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce, we recently spoke with Managing Director Timothy Anderson.
Tell us a little about Halbert Hargrove Global Advisors.
We like to call ourselves “Fiduciary Investment Managers and Wealth Advisors to the ‘quietly wealthy.’” That pretty much sums up the type of people we like to attract as clients – and who we really are today. We were founded in Long Beach, California, in 1933 as a broker/dealer serving oil field workers, primarily from the Signal Hill field in Long Beach. Fast forward to 1988, when we converted to a Registered Investment Advisor and we continue to operate in that capacity to this day.
We now have 46 full-time employees, not counting a regular crew of four interns from California State University Long Beach School of Business. Management, and most of our employees, are in our “mothership” office in Long Beach, with regional offices serving clients in Seattle, Denver, Scottsdale, San Diego, Orange County and Houston. Technically, my office is in the home office building, but since I moved to Oregon seven years ago, I’ve been commuting several times a year, usually monthly, and maintain that office while working remotely the rest of the time from my home office in Fall Creek, Oregon.
We manage $3 billion in client assets across, at present, 800+ relationships. We hold ourselves out as fiduciaries in fact and appearance, which means our clients’ interests always come before ours.
Timothy J. Anderson
Where and how did you get your start in the business?
How I got to Halbert Hargrove needs to start with how I got into the investment advice business in the first place. I jokingly refer to myself as a “recovering CPA.” While I remain licensed to this day, I have not practiced in that profession since 1978, when a college professor of mine from Pacific Lutheran University invited me to take a look at a pacific Northwest-based company in Tacoma called Frank Russell Company, where he also worked. Today, they’ve moved to Seattle and changed their name to Russell Investments.
I joined Russell in 1978, and spent 11 years there on institutional investment manager research assignments in Tacoma, Toronto, and London. Then, in 1989, I got the urge to spread my wings and go out on my own … but that didn’t work out. So I contacted George Russell, then CEO and Chairman of Russell Investments, and he put me in touch with my current partner and chairman of Halbert Hargrove, in Long Beach. On May 18, 1994, I began my career with Halbert Hargrove. Next year I will be marking my third decade there as a managing shareholder.
What should the community know about the services provided by Halbert Hargrove Global Advisors?
We do what we tell our clients we will do for them, and I think our 95% client retention rate speaks to this.
What do you like most about your work?
For the longest time my favorite role was business development and client service. I’m at a point now where I’ve had many clients for decades, so seeing where they’ve come from to where they are today brings a huge level of satisfaction. Over the past several years, my role has morphed into more of a mentoring role with a top-drawer group of investment professionals, yet I still look after a select group of client relationships that I just can’t let go of – and I guess they can’t let go of me either!
Do you have any advice for others?
Stay diversified and stay disciplined in your wealth planning.
Anything else you’d like to share?
Longevity changes everything in our industry. We’ve gone to great lengths to build an environment where multiple generations can flourish. I have professionals on my service team who were born AFTER some of my clients signed on! One component of this objective is a merit-based employee ownership plan that we put into place about 15 years ago, to improve the odds of keeping the talent we’ve invested in, and whom we know we want as part of the future Halbert Hargrove. Another component is our intern program that is a terrific source for talent, that plays into our organic growth strategy and lends to a very rich culture. Many of our competitors grow by acquiring other advisors, but we don’t believe that is conducive to a vibrant firm culture; in fact, we think that works against it. This is a slower path to growth, but certainly more rewarding for all concerned.
We’ve also maintained an “ISO-like” certification for many years called the CEFEX Certification. This is an independent international certification organization that, in short, audits our operations each year to determine that we do, indeed, act as fiduciaries. The process is tantamount to dragging our operations team through a knothole sideways, but we believe it to be very much worth the time and effort; it’s not easy to get, and harder yet to maintain it from year to year.
Lastly, we enjoy industry recognition, and if any of the readers are interested, they can see more here: Finance Industry Recognition and Awards | Halbert Hargrove . Most recently, we’ve been ranked No. 8 on the 2022 CNBC Financial Advisor 100 list.
Halbert Hargrove Global Advisors provides a proven, goals-directed planning process for wealthy families and individuals. Their wealth advisory and fiduciary investment services help their clients preserve and grow their wealth through access to preferred investment vehicles, extensive market experience, and proven strategies that they’ve continually refined since their founding in 1933.
