Freedom Capital Management provides financial planning with a flare. The small firm, which prides itself on its in personal service, has a history buff, a magician and a glider pilot among its advisors and each is given the freedom to combine their avocation with their vocation.

Paul Largo, founder and president of Lincroft, N.J.-based Freedom Capital, a veteran of the financial field, having started as a retail broker for Prudential Securities in 1997. He then moved to management in 2000 with UBS, and then worked a couple of years later as a recruiter and branch manager with Royal Alliance Associates Inc., a broker-dealer based in New York City.

But Largo wanted to be independent and have something he could call his own and build on. Having been in management for several years, he no longer had a client base, but in 2008 he struck out on his own, starting from scratch with no clients and no staff, and founded Freedom Capital Management.
Maintaining a relationship with Largo's former employer, FCM offers securities and advisory services through Royal Alliance Associates Inc., a member of FINRA & SIPC.  The FCM advisors are independent registered representatives with Royal Alliance Associates.

Largo set out to build a firm that would be based on the business model he believed in-designed to provide the personalized service that investors were not getting from bigger firms. He hired former wirehouse advisors who shared his vision, each of whom had at least five years of experience in the financial industry.

Now, two years later, he has 14 employees, including five CFPs, four support staff, a compliance officer and client services personnel. Freedom Capital has $220 million in assets under management, a number that is growing in the current chaotic market.  

The added flare that advisors bring to their 'day job' is their passion for a variety of other types of activities during their off-duty hours. For instance, it is not unusual to see Glenn W. LeBoeuf show up at the office carrying a bust of President Lincoln or a canteen used by a Civil War soldier. A one-time history teacher and avowed history buff, he is an expert in all things Lincoln, as well as the Civil War. An avid re-enactor, he has appeared in major Civil War movies and helped stage the largest Civil War re-enactment ever at  Gettysburg in 1998, with 22,000 re-enactors from all over the world participating.

A paid history lecturer in his spare time, LeBoeuf is a senior vice president at Freedom Capital and a chartered retirement planning counselor.
"I kept bumping into Paul at the Dunkin' Donuts, but for years I was comfortable at Smith Barney and I saw no reason to go independent," LeBoeuf remembers. "But then wirehouses started cutting salaries and destroying stock options and I knew that was the tipping point for me. Now I feel more professional here and I am not pressured to spend 95% of my time opening new accounts-I can spend time with my existing clients."

But the real draw is that the advisors are allowed to "think outside the box" when it comes to building community relationships and recruiting new
clients. "Freedom Capital takes the Lincoln presentation to schools or charity events and it is great public relations for us. Freedom Capital will sponsor community events. A lot of people will ask what we do for a living and it gives us an opening to tell them. It opens doors for us," LeBoeuf says.

"Having a passion for something else can help us establish credibility on a different level," he explains. "There is a leap of faith that occurs if someone knows you on an intellectual level, then they assume you might be knowledgeable in financial areas also."

Largo adds, "If Freedom Capital sponsors a historical event, there will be families there and we can approach people as potential clients. I took my 10-year-old son to a re-enactment with Glenn and came home with a new client-I can't think of anything better than that combination."

History is not the only passion of Freedom Capital's officers. Bruce Langrock left UBS last April after 12 years to work independently, but he did not want to go to a big firm with high overhead, so he joined Freedom Capital.

Langrock is also an experienced magician who has been practicing his hobby since he was in the third grade. "I was a good cold caller in the financial world and I could also keep a group of Boy Scouts entertained, so I thought I had a lot to bring to the table in trying to present seminars and recruit new clients. I do magic tricks with money and use that as a transition at financial seminars," Langrock says. "It's a fun way to introduce people to the topic of money."

Langrock brought most of his clients with him when he moved to Freedom Capital because he said they knew and trusted him. He kept in touch on a regular basis, something Largo encourages at his firm.

The adventurous side of Freedom Capital advisors also extends to David A. Teeter, who is a licensed glider pilot or, as they are often referred to, a "sail plane" pilot.  He is a member of a club in Pennsylvania that communally owns seven gliders.

"It is a great way to meet new people and exposes me to people from a wide variety of professions," says Teeter.

Teeter not only reaches out to new clients through his hobby, he also piloting techniques to financial planning. "The discipline of flying teaches you the need for attention to details and strict adherence to procedures. You have to practice for emergencies and know what you would do in different situations," Teeter explains. "If something goes wrong, you have to be prepared ahead of time to know what you need to do. In both flying and financial planning, you need as much knowledge as possible to be best prepared to deal with a flying emergency or to properly manage a portfolio."

Teeters says Freedom Capital gives him the flexibility to continue pursue his education in both fields. "I started out as an institutional fixed income specialist. Then I made the transition to retail and kept some of my institutional accounts as new individual clients. Now I am partnering with Paul and I would not want to be anywhere else," Teeter says.

In the same manner, Largo encouraged another of his advisors, Linda Mock, to join the New Jersey Women Business Owners Association when she was considering it. She questioned how much time it would require, but Largo assured her the connections she would make at conferences and events would be invaluable.

Freedom Capital's philosophy is to use its advisors' unique talents as tools. "In the last 24 months, we have done a dozen marketing events, some historical in nature, some community carnivals and even a wine tasting," Largo says. "We take the opportunity to sponsor different types of events to introduce ourselves to new people. The days of cold calling are pretty much dead. Today you have to establish a relationship."

Freedom Capital specializes in servicing the financial planning and asset management needs for high-net-worth families. "We believe our clients have confidence in their investments knowing their advisors have serviced some of Wall Street's biggest firms with a variety of institutional investment strategies," Largo says. "We deliver actively managed investment strategies customized to the clients."

The firm uses mutual funds and low-cost exchange traded funds, among other investments, and manages assets in-house. Fees range from 1.5% to 1%, depending on the size of the account, but no commissions are charged.

Freedom Capital does not have a minimum investment amount, but the typical client is a household with $500,000 in investable assets. Most are business owners or retirees based in New Jersey or New York.

Freedom Capital does not believe in passively riding out a troubled economy, or hiring money managers to deal with the problems. Rather, the advisors take an active approach to dynamically growing and managing wealth, Largo says. Without the bureaucratic overhead and highly paid management that exist in larger firms, funds are used to build an infrastructure to help clients.

Largo recruits new clients and handles the business expansion plans. He arranges the instructional seminars that are held three times a year with about 150 people attending each one. Advisors often gain 20 to 30 new clients from these events, which stress service, not product sales.

"Our approach to investing is very tactical," Largo says. "Last year we saw shifts to international investments and commodities. This year our belief is that small-cap domestic should outperform large cap and we will reduce our international investments. The U.S. dollar has been good the last few months in helping clients' accounts."

But the real key to Freedom Capital's success is more philosophical. "Everyone on staff here is local and part of the team," Largo emphasizes. "Everyone is proactive and specializes in communication. In bigger firms with hundreds of clients, some of the services and smaller clients are shipped to a service center and never see their advisor. We welcome our clients at any time and we keep in touch."