Brookstone Capital Management, LLC is an advisory firm located in Wheaton, Illinois. This firm has thousands of clients through its network of independent advisory representatives or IARs. Most of these clients are individuals, though there are a few institutional clients as well. Brookstone provides asset management and financial planning services to its IARs, who then provide them to their clients.
Brookstone is a fee-based firm, as some of its advisors can earn commissions from selling financial products to clients via an affiliated broker-dealer or insurance agency. This is different from a fee-only firm, which doesn't receive outside forms of compensation and instead only takes advisory fees directly from clients.
Brookstone Capital Management Background
Brookstone Capital Management was founded in 2006 by Dean Zayed. AL BCM, LLC, a Delaware limited liability holding company, owns the firm, while Zayed and AL Marketing, LLC (AmeriLife) own AL BCM, LLC.
Zayed is a certified financial planner (CFP), and he also serves as the CEO of Brookstone. Darryl Ronconi is the firm's president and chief operating officer (COO), Matt Lovett is the chief compliance officer (CCO) and Mark DiOrio is the chief investment officer (CIO). DiOrio is also a chartered financial analyst (CFA).
Brookstone Capital Management Client Types and Minimum Account Sizes
Through its IARs, Brookstone Capital Management works almost entirely with individuals. The vast majority of these clients are below the high-net-worth threshold, although a portion of individual clients have a high net worth. Some of the firm's clients are businesses and other corporations. The firm also has the ability to work with retirement plans, trusts, estates and charitable organizations.
Brookstone offers several different investment programs and strategies. Minimum account sizes range from $5,000 to $100,000, depending on the type of strategy or a mix of strategies used by each client. Here are the minimums for some of the firm's investment strategies:
- Equity: Tactical - $25,000 to $40,000
- Equity: Strategic - $5,000 to $100,000
- Fixed-Income: Tactical - $2,000
- Fixed-Income: Strategic - $2,000 to $25,000
Other accounts and programs at Brookstone may carry other minimum requirements.
Services Offered by Brookstone Capital Management
Brookstone Capital Management provides investment and asset management services, as well as comprehensive financial planning. Each of these offerings is designed to help clients with their short-term financial needs and long-term objectives. When it comes to discretionary investment management, Brookstone works with clients to develop a personalized portfolio that might include equities, mutual funds, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), structured notes, certificates of deposit (CDs), bonds and options. The firm has a number of preset strategies and wrap-fee programs that it uses in investment plans.
Financial planning services are also tailored to the individual needs of clients. Brookstone typically helps businesses and individuals with issues including investment planning, insurance needs planning, retirement planning, cash flow management, debt consolidation, liquidity planning, education fund planning, estate planning and business planning.
Brookstone Capital Management Investment Philosophy
Brookstone's investment philosophy is centered around helping each client achieve their financial goals. As a result, advisors use a range of different strategies, programs and investments to craft portfolios accordingly. They take into account a wide range of factors that define each client's investor profile, such as risk tolerance, time horizon, investment history, income needs and more. By sufficiently defining these characteristics, the firm is able to create an asset allocation plan that works for the client.
Advisors use fundamental, technical and cyclical methods of analysis to help them make investment decisions for clients' portfolios. They also do significant independent research using proprietary investment software to both confirm these findings and flesh them out even further.
The firm's investment strategies rely on either tactical or strategic methodologies. From there, the strategies are broken down into the following categories:
- Equity strategies
- Fixed income strategies
- Correlation strategies
- Volatility strategies
Fees Under Brookstone Capital Management
Since Brookstone Capital Management provides its services through a network of IARs, the firm allows those independent advisors to set fees within a range that tops out at 2.5% of assets under management. Between .10% and .95% of that fee will go to Brookstone each year, depending on services and investment program, while the IAR can collect up to 1.5% of assets under management.
The firm offers its asset management services as a wrap fee program, which bundles advisory, account and transaction fees into a single charge.
Financial planning fees are charged as either a flat or hourly fee. Hourly rates are generally $350 per hour and flat fees range from $200 to $5,000.
What to Watch Out For
Some advisors at Brookstone Capital Management can receive commissions from the sale of insurance products or securities, meaning this is a fee-based firm. This dynamic creates the potential for a conflict of interest to arise. However, the firm is a fiduciary and is therefore legally bound to act in the best interests of clients at all times.
While Brookstone Capital Management does have four disclosures listed on its Form ADV, none of them implicate the firm directly, but rather concern alleged violations by some of Brookstone's affiliates.
Opening an Account With Brookstone Capital Management
To find out more about Brookstone Capital Management, go to its website and submit an inquiry form. You can also call the firm on the phone at (630) 653-1400.
All information is accurate as of the writing of this article.
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