Aegis Capital Corp. is a financial advisor firm headquartered in New York. It works mainly on a non-discretionary basis with individual clients, retirement plans, pooled investment vehicles and businesses. The firm also provides financial planning services.
Aegis Capital Corp. is a fee-based advisory firm. It charges an annual fee based on a client’s AUM, but it also receives commissions from selling various financial products like annuities, insurance, stocks and bonds. As the firm's advisors may be incentivized to encourage clients to make such transactions, this represents a potential conflict of interest. Even still, the firm abides by fiduciary duty, which legally binds it to act in your best interests.
Aegis Capital Corp. Background
Aegis Capital Corp was founded in 1984 by Robert Eide, who now has around 40 years’ experience in financial services. The firm has since grown to house a large stable of financial advisors, but Eide remains as chairman, CEO and principal owner.
Aegis Capital Corp. Client Types and Minimum Account Sizes
Aegis Capital Corp. works primarily with non-high-net-worth individuals, as well as some high-net-worth individuals. Institutional clients include pooled investment vehicles, retirement plans, charitable organizations and businesses.
There are no minimum account size requirements of any kind at Aegis Capital Corp.
Services Offered by Aegis Capital Corp.
Aegis provides a number of financial planning and investment services to its clients, typically in the form of non-discretionary accounts. These offerings include:
- Wealth management
- Education cost planning
- Estate planning
- Annuity planning
- Long-term care planning
- Life insurance planning
- Retirement planning
- Retirement plan services
- Investment services
- Fixed-income investing
- Alternative investments
- Structured products
- Special purpose vehicles
- Private equity
- Investment banking
- Insurance
Aegis Capital Corp. Investment Philosophy
Aegis uses a wide range of methods and analysis in helping to manage and grow its clients’ assets. These methods include charting, fundamental, cyclical and technical analysis. The firm also gets its information from a wide range of sources, including newspapers and magazines, corporate inspections, third-party research and other reports.
Aegis tailors a particular investment strategy for each of its clients. They tend to utilise long- and short-term purchases, trading, short sale, option writing and other transactions to craft the ideal portfolio for each client. Ultimately, the firm’s goal for each client is to drive long-term growth while minimizing risk to a level that the client can stomach.
Fees Under Aegis Capital Corp.
Aegis charges an annual fee based upon each client’s AUM. The firm offers wrap fee accounts as well as non-wrap fee accounts. A wrap fee program is generally more expensive, but its purpose is to combine transactional costs and other charges within a single fee. On the other hand, a standard account will incur transactional costs in addition to the management fee.
| Account Fee Schedule | ||
| AUM | Wrap Fee Annual Rates | Non-Wrap Fee Annual Rates |
| Up to $250K | 3.00% | 2.50% |
| $250K to $1MM | 2.75% | 2.25% |
| $1MM and up | 2.50% | 2.00% |
What to Watch Out For
Aegis Capital Corp. has 29 disclosures reported on its Form ADV. These include violations like the submission of reports that contained inaccurate data, the selling of non-registered micro-cap stocks, the untimely reporting of municipal securities transactions and more. As a result of many of these disclosures, the firm was fined various amounts, among other sanctions.
As a fee-based firm, Aegis receives commissions for selling insurance and securities products. This creates the potential for a conflict of interest. However, the firm is still legally obligated to abide by fiduciary duty, meaning it must act in your best interest at all times.
Opening an Account With Aegis Capital Corp.
To become a client of Aegis Capital Corp., submit a contact form on its website or call (800) 920-2502.
All information was accurate as of the writing of this article.
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