Walking away from 14 years with Northwestern Mutual, David Eisenhauer has unveiled a new independent registered investment advisory firm in Danville, Calif.
Acting as chief wealth strategist, Eisenhauer launched Greykasell Wealth Strategies along with an office manager (also his wife) and directors of investments and operations, all of whom joined him in the move. The team managed $450 million for north of 100 clients at Northwestern.
Greykasell (named for Eisenhauer’s three children, Greydon, Kason and Ellie) offers tax-optimized financial planning, asset management and estate planning services for individual households. Business and benefits planning, succession services and qualified retirement plan consultation are available to business owners.
“Clients’ needs have continued to evolve, and their feedback has evolved,” Eisenhauer told WealthManagement.com. “And it has really been around stuff like eliminating trade fees, better technology, more robust tax planning, enhanced or better trust services, the highest fiduciary duty and things of that nature. So, as we evaluated where the industry's at today and where it's heading in the future, we knew we needed to make a change.”
While legal considerations have prevented Greykasell from reaching out to the clients it served at Northwestern, Eisenhauer expects most will eventually follow him to the new firm.
“This move is for them, and it’s based on their feedback,” he said.
Eisenhauer considered joining an RIA platform like Dynasty or Sanctuary, and even spoke with some hybrids and other broker/dealers before deciding to go out on his own.
"To drive value for where client needs are in a year, two years, five years, this really just seemed to be the right fit so that we could be in control of how we're representing ourselves for clients and able to drive that extreme level of value that we desire to create," he said.
The firm has chosen Fidelity and Schwab to provide the bulk of custodial services, designating Fidelity as its primary partner and adopting Black Diamond as its CRM. Eisenhauer said Fidelity’s platform security and integrative capabilities, as well as the custodian’s ability to offer high-yield money market sweeps, were key factors in the selection.
“Taking the leap toward independence is an exciting milestone, and we are eager to support the team’s continued growth and steadfast focus on meeting the increasingly complex needs of their clients,” Fidelity Institutional Head of Client Growth Rohit Mahna said in a statement.
Greykasell’s portfolio management fees range from .3% to 1.65% of managed assets, while financial planning will be charged as a flat fee based on complexity and time requirements except in cases where an hourly charge may be applied. The firm has set a minimum balance of $1 million for client accounts (allowing for certain exceptions), but Eisenhauer said it will ideally be closer to $4 million.
“What we realized in working with family members’ legacy accounts and then the individuals that are high earners but haven't had the opportunity to accumulate as much yet, is that we still have the opportunity to do really impactful planning,” he explained. “And so, we decided to move our minimum to that million per account so that way we weren't excluding clients we could grow with.”
Eisenhauer doesn’t see a limit to Greykasell’s growth potential and said the goal is to reach $1 billion in assets “in the not too distant future.”
“Without sacrificing the level of service we're currently giving,” he said. “So that means we're likely going to have to continue to expand the team in a healthy fashion, so we're keeping quality and value at the highest level, but that's going to be where we're trending to and targeting as we continue to grow. And we think that's really the platform that we've tried to build and be able to execute on.”