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."

With some firms, you can attribute success to sheer and undeniable demographics. The boomers are aging. There are 78 million of them. They need assistance. The reasons for Boyer's success, however, are deeper than that. It's not just about being in the right business at the right time. "It's about realizing that the better clients do, the better we all do. It's about how we share success that propels us all forward," the 60-year-old Boyer says.             Sharing success and wealth is something Boyer takes seriously, as evidenced by his stock purchase plan for employees, the firm's generous profit-sharing and its 2% annual charitable contributions-a whopping $110,000 in combined donations for 2007. Wal-Mart only gave at 0.08%. "I think if every company gave at 2%, we'd solve the world's problems," Boyer says.

Spreading the wealth is something he benefits from, too, he says. In fact, he just got back from a trip he made to Italy with six other couples, five of them clients. "Some business people don't like to work with friends, but Bart will look you dead in the eye and tell you he only wants to work with people he likes. And he means it," says one of his newer recruits, Michael J. Bruder, a longtime trust and commercial lending officer in Asheville who worked with Boyer for years on mutual trust accounts before joining Parsec just last fall. "As I approached age 55, I asked myself: 'Is this really what I want to do with the rest of my life?'" Bruder remembers. "I had my CFP and wanted to do wealth management, but not just any place. So, I called Bart and said: 'I want to go into wealth management and yours is the only firm I'd work with in Asheville.' A week later, we shook hands." Today, he sits in Boyer's office and will take over many of the president's clients in the years ahead as Boyer begins to take a little more time off to pursue his wanderlust, work on his tennis prowess and shore up his fledgling golf game.

By all reports, Boyer's reputation and the culture he's created are key components of his growing firm, which today has offices in both Asheville and Charlotte, N.C. Boyer says he can see opening four to five more offices in the next five years. While advisory firms' worst challenge these days is a shortage of quality staff, the best and brightest advisors seem to find their way to Parsec's doors. Many of the firm's 13 advisors have come on board in the past five years, some in the past two months, from leading financial services institutions including Charles Schwab & Co. and Wachovia. This creates deep bench strength for Parsec's clients, many of whom, like Christianson, have evolving business and family needs. It also ensures the firm's growth and profitability as senior employees begin to depend on their Parsec stock values and dividends for retirement. "It's a win-win situation for everyone," says Boyer. "Employee ownership is better for clients, it's better for the founder [meaning himself], and it's dramatically better for employees."

Parsec partner and advisor Barbara Gray agrees: "We have two managing partners, both in their late 30s, and they'll be here for 20 years at least as owners. When I retire, I can be assured I'll get dividends," says Gray, a neighbor of Boyer's whom he recruited as a client service specialist in 1999. Today, Gray, who is lead advisor for 100 clients and oversees Parsec's compliance efforts, owns 2% of the firm.

Everyone gets to buy stock at Parsec, from the receptionist to the CEO. Their reward? A 100% employer match, average annual returns of 15% and dividends of 10%. Employees can pay for their shares over the course of the year through paycheck deduction, but they immediately begin to earn dividends. For a $150,000 investment over 30 years ($5,000 annually), rank-and-file employees can walk away with $4.5 million at retirement, according to the firm's stock buying opportunity handout. Dividends alone are projected to pay more than $381,000 in year 30. "Beyond creating passionate ownership, this is a way for everyone to create tremendous wealth," says Gray. Couple stock ownership with the Parsec profit-sharing plan, which is funded exclusively by the firm at 20% of employee pay up to $42,000 annually, and it's easy to see how Boyer attracts and retains top talent.

More advisors in the industry are beginning to hear Boyer talk about the benefits of employee stock ownership firsthand as an integral part of succession planning. He presented his vision at two NAPFA conferences this year, including the organization's Advanced Planners Conference. "When you think about ownership transition in our industry, typically advisors sell to [a] financial entity or one of those roll-up firms," Boyer says. "For our clients, it would mean an increase in fees at the very least. I'd have to pay taxes on all that money. And it would take away our ability to build and earn together."

Undoubtedly, stock ownership has been a great recruiting tool for the firm. "I worked with one of the trust officers who joined Parsec recently from Wachovia," says estate attorney Andy Strauss. "New folks have no doubt been very attracted to the fact that they could become owners of Parsec and have a piece of the action. Bart's model for sharing in revenues and growth is a successful one."

So is the service offering the firm continues to develop and build out for advisors. At the core, says Barbara Gray is "the road map for success," the firm provides. "If you come in early and follow the plan, you succeed. We just had a 55-year-old retire with quite a nice portfolio. She says: We owe it all to Parsec and Bart."

The firm's dedication to building out trust services is also paying off, especially as client needs get more complex, Gray adds. Roger James, a senior trust advisor at Parsec, is one of five people who moved from Wachovia's trust department this past summer. "Sometimes with large institutions it becomes about the institution and it's harder to balance trustee and beneficiary needs. We looked at a number of options over nine months and found that Parsec offered the most client-focused package with great investment management and a reasonable fee scale," says James, who managed 336 clients in his former life as a trust banker.

While Boyer is the first to admit that the fees the firm charges clients are low, especially for the comprehensive planning and investment management Parsec provides, he says he is steadfast in his belief that Parsec's value pricing "will allow us to make more money and ultimately attract more assets and larger clients over time." He laughs when a reporter tells him many advisory firms are adding annual planning fees to client bills. Parsec isn't on board with that, he says. "Our largest client is in the range of $12 million," Boyer says. "We hope to get more of those opportunities and think the low fee helps us do that."

"We're sure Bart could charge more, but we're glad he doesn't," says longtime client Christianson.
Greg James, the manager of Parsec's Charlotte office, appreciates Boyer's pricing strategy, too. "It makes us very competitive on fees and on service levels, which allows us to capture larger clients," he says. "It's a very tough market here in Charlotte. We go up against the biggest banks and brokers and we really appreciate the advantage."