Arete Wealth Advisors is an investment advisory and wealth management firm headquartered in Chicago. It has additional offices throughout the country, including locations in Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Virginia.
Arete firm advises mostly high-net-worth clients, though it does have individual clients who fall below the high-net-worth threshold. It also has a roster of institutional clients, including pension and profit-sharing plans, and corporations.
Arete Wealth Management Background
Arete Wealth Advisors was founded in 2007, and it has been registered with the SEC since 2009. It is wholly owned by its parent holding company, Old Growth Capital, LLC. The holding company owns another wholly owned subsidiary, Arete Wealth Management, LLC, which is a broker-dealer. Some of the advisors at Arete Wealth Management may also be registered representatives with Arete Wealth Management.
Arete Wealth Management Client Types and Minimum Account Sizes
Arete Wealth Advisors is capable of serving the following types of clients:
- Individuals
- High-net-worth individuals
- Ultra-high-net-worth individuals
- Pension and profit-sharing plans
- Trusts
- Estates
- Charitable organizations
- Other corporate and business entities
Arete Wealth Advisors generally requires its clients to have an initial account balance of at least $50,000. However, the firm may waive this minimum depending on the clients' needs and complexity of services needed.
Services Offered by Arete Wealth Management
Arete offers a range of services, including:
- Discretionary investment management
- Asset allocation review and recommendations
- Cash management
- Insurance planning / risk management
- Retirement planning
- Education planning
- Estate planning
- Family office services
- Wealth transfer between generations and to charitable organizations
- Private asset management
In addition, the firm offers investment banking and consulting services to companies and institutional clients.
The company cana also help clients acquire, curate and protect a collection of fine art and wine, treating it as an investment.
Arete Wealth Management Investment Philosophy
Arete Wealth Advisors works with clients to develop a plan to set themselves up for the future, with a focus on accumulating wealth for retirement and creating a strategy for how to use that income post-retirement.
The firm uses a variety of analytical tools to pick the best investments for their clients, including mutual fund analysis, charting, fundamental analysis, technical analysis and quantitative analysis. The firm recognizes that market volatility has been high for the past 15 years. It looks to avoid short-term losses as best it can while also staying focused on the long-view of investing.
Fees Under Arete Wealth Management
Arete Wealth Advisors charges an advisory fee based on a percentage of assets under management (AUM). This takes the form of a wrap fee, which covers investment advice, execution and clearing of transactions, custody of assets and record-keeping services. Around 90% of the fee goes to the person directly managing your account, the portfolio manager.
The annual fee can be up to 3.00% of assets under management. However, the firm’s fee rate generally decreases the greater the level of assets under management, as show in the fee table below.
| Investment Management Fees | |
| Assets Under Management | Maximum Annual Fee |
| $0*- $249,000 | 3.00% |
| $250,000 - $749,999 | 2.50% |
| $750,000 - $1,499,999 | 2.00% |
| $1.5MM - $4,999,999 | 1.75% |
| $5MM and over | 1.50% |
| *Arete generally requires a minimum initial account balance of $50,000. | |
Here's what your investment management fees may look like based on the size of your account:
| Estimated Investment Management Fees at Arete Wealth Advisors* | |
| Your Assets | Arete Wealth Advisors Fee Amounts |
| $500K | $13,750 |
| $1MM | $25,000 |
| $5MM | $96,250 |
| $10MM | $171,250 |
Other fees clients may pay include mutual fund charges, structured product charges, transaction charges and wire transfer fees. Some qualified clients may be recommended to use a performance-based fee structure through Arete’s third-party asset manager, Dunham & Associates Investment Counsel. These clients will not be charge an ongoing management fee.
For financial planning services, the firm charges clients either an hourly fee or a fixed rate fee. Rates will be negotiated between each client and his or her advisor and will be noted in the client's advisory contracted.
For an idea of how Arete Wealth Advisors' investment advisory fees compare to those at other firms, see the table below. Fee estimates are based on the maximum annual fee rate.
What to Watch Out For
Arete Wealth Management has two disclosures of regulatory actions listed on the Form ADV filed most recently with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commissions. Both actions involved an advisory affiliate, not the firm directly.
Potential and current clients should be aware that Arete Wealth Advisors is connected to a registered broker-dealer, Arete Wealth Management. Many of the firm’s advisors are also registered representatives of the broker-dealer, and they may receive additional compensation for these services.
Additionally, advisors may also sell insurance through an insurance agency affiliated with the firm, Arete Insurance Agency, LLC. Advisors may also receive additional compensation for the sale of insurance products. Though the firm is bound by fiduciary duty, these streams of additional compensation from both the brokerage and insurance services may create potential conflicts of interest, which could impact the recommendations the advisors make.
Opening an Account With Arete Wealth Management
To become a client of Arete, you can fill out a contact form on the firm's website or call the Arete headquarters at (312) 940-3684.
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