Five years after launching his own optometry business in 1985, Dr. Dana Christianson found himself managing his own budding investment portfolio himself, too-a tall order for most people. "I knew I needed some assistance," says Christianson, who today helms three optometry offices in the Asheville, N.C., area. "I was running a busy medical practice and I always felt like I was three months late making investment decisions."
So in 1990 Christianson started interviewing advisors and worked with a few on a limited basis, with little success.
"The other fee-only advisor in town told me to come back when I had my first million," the doctor says, today calling the practitioner a "bit shortsighted." The advisor's bond-heavy portfolios were not very attractive anyway, Christianson says. Nor were the momentum-based investment stylings of the handful of brokers and bankers in town. "They were all about buying and selling all the time, which generated more fees for them, but never seemed to result in a cohesive long-range strategy for me."
By luck he heard his advisor-to-be William Barton "Bart" Boyer, chairman and CEO of Parsec Financial, speak at a few fund raisers and liked what he heard about Boyer's penchant for individual equities and low-cost, fee-only services. Today, Boyer manages not only Christianson's individual accounts, but his business's 401(k) and SEP plans, the custodial accounts for his three kids, his wife's portfolio and those of his mother and his mother-in-law.
"I don't want to sound over the top, but in some ways Bart has changed my life by giving me comfort and security," says Christianson. That peace of mind, the doctor says, allows him to build his business and enjoy his life without the constant nagging thought that he may be making costly investment mistakes.
Today, Christianson, and the many folks like him who were lucky enough to find their way to Bart Boyer's door over the nearly three decades since he created his firm, have filled Parsec's coffers with $1 billion in assets. And this will likely double in the next five years, thanks to a 19% growth rate, senior managers say. Boyer himself believes his 29 employees (who are almost all shareholders) will double as well in that time.
Parsec's claim to fame? "Clients like that the firm is centered on helping them achieve their goals through thoughtful portfolio growth, not by pushing their own mutual funds and insurance," says Andy Strauss, a partner in the Asheville estate planning firm of Strauss & Associates. Strauss routinely partners with Parsec advisors on estate plans and says he has no reservations referring investors to the firm. "One of Bart's trademarks is his long-term equity investing and intellectual consistency. Over the years, it's become apparent that his knowledge and discipline increase clients' net worth," says Strauss, who has himself invested with Parsec.
At its core, Parsec provides value-priced, fee-only comprehensive planning and investment management at prices that start at 0.9% up to $1 million. The aggregate family and business discount reduces client fees to as little as 50 basis points for accounts of $8 million or more. The firm will generate $550 million in gross revenues in 2007, a heady number that fuels Parsec's profit sharing, growth and charitable goals.
Using the investment model Boyer himself began developing more than 30 years ago, his investment team, led by William S. Hansen, builds client portfolios using carefully selected individual equities for mid- and large-cap positions. "Our logic is it doesn't make sense on the larger-cap side to pay a mutual fund manager to go buy Microsoft or General Electric," says Hansen. The typical portfolio has 40 to 50 positions and low turnover, adds Hansen, who steers clear of heavily leveraged companies in favor of those with earnings that outpace their cost of capital.
Boyer's love of stocks began back when he was a kid, living with his grandparents and his mom, a very smart but very underpaid college professor. "Everyone in my family was intelligent and worked hard, but they were all kind of broke," says Boyer, who decided that wasn't going to be him. As he sought to learn about investing, a savvy uncle suggested he should buy two shares of an oil company (the precursor of Amoco). "It doubled to $100 a share in 18 months. I was amazed by that," says Boyer.
More than 40 years later, Boyer's lifelong pursuit of stock investing wisdom informs all of his clients' portfolios. "I can safely say our stock portfolios allow customization and save clients 1% to 1.5% they'd pay elsewhere for mutual funds," says Greg James, a partner in Parsec's Charlotte office who moved over from Charles Schwab & Co. in 2001. "We get growth and the upside of the market, but we're very much about limiting downside, too. Why should we own the automakers and steel companies in an index fund when they make no money?" asks James. "This allows us to outperform the market and add value for clients as their CFOs."