From its leadership to its junior employees, Bartlett emphasizes the accessibility and openness of its people. Personal e-mails and office phone numbers are listed on its website for the public to see. All employees work in the same office. The idea is that clients shouldn’t be served by voice mail or automated menus; instead they have direct access to the firm’s advisors and its management.
“I think we’ve always put our phone numbers and e-mail out there. We like to be pretty accessible,” says Downing. “It may be that all of us still work directly with clients, and we’re all involved in the community.”
The firm tries to take a customized approach with its clients, recognizing that most forms of generic financial advice are already available to Americans for free online. It has developed expertise in planning around divorce, inheritances, stock options, legacy planning, caring for elderly parents, coping with the death of a spouse and domestic partner and philanthropic planning.
“We provide advice around different transitional points,” says Poole. “The plan really becomes important as someone is chugging along, but timely advice is most important during a transitional point like a first job, [or when someone is] starting to save, graduating from college, buying a house or starting a family.”
Much of the firm’s history and legacy revolved around its investment management—as it helped high-earning employees from companies like Procter & Gamble, Kroger, Macy’s and Cintas make key decisions about their portfolios and their financial lives.
To continue to serve those clients, Bartlett has kept its in-house investment management and research capabilities so it can offer expertise on single securities. The firm’s investment strategy overall, however, focuses on wealth preservation through broad diversification across and within asset classes.
“Keeping investment management in house is a key differentiator for us,” says Antenucci. “We’ve been providing customized solutions to our clients for the last 120 years, and this continues that tradition.”
The internal investment capabilities integrate well with financial planning, Hagerty says, as Bartlett customizes portfolios for each client.
Over time, Bartlett’s managers have shifted from single securities toward more mutual funds and ETFs, allowing managers to choose from a roster of funds screened and followed by its analysts, who emphasize risk characteristics, long-term returns, quality and tenure of management and expense ratios in their process.
The firm is also harnessing alternatives to further diversify client portfolios. “Currently, all our alternative allocations are in ’40 Act mutual funds with low or negative correlations to stock and bond markets and below-average fees beyond what a client could get from a direct purchase of an alternative strategy,” says Antenucci. “We’re looking at categories like reinsurance, commodities, managed futures, variance risk premium and put selling, and alternative fixed-income funds.”