We offer exclusive private independent investment counsel to individuals, organizational trustees, and retirement plan fiduciaries to help prestigious individuals, organizations, and companies achieve their Lifetime Dreams and reduce their personal fiduciary liability. We work with many types of people and institutions. While our privacy policy prevents us from disclosing the names of our clients and prospects (per Federal law), we can provide references upon request and only after asking our clients for permission to disclose their names. In all cases we serve as a fiduciary. In general, we can describe the types of clients who have taken advantage of the variety of unique services we offer. We’ll break these down by service area below:
Carosa Stanton Privately Managed Portfolios – This represents our principal service. Through the years we’ve served corporate executives, professionals, and non-profit endowments. We manage a fair number of IRA Rollovers and corporate retirement plans. We also manage trusts and estates for widows and surviving children. We manage across the full spectrum of stock and bond investment objectives, but our most popular objective is our Unrestricted Allocation. This is a conservative long-term approach that focuses (although not exclusively) on value stocks with a diverse mix of risk/return characteristics. In this objective, our clients give us liberty to invest in the asset mix we feel is most likely to maximize their chances of achieving their objective. Our second most popular objective is our Income-Oriented (or Balanced) Allocation. Portfolios using this objective are weighted more heavily towards an asset mix that increases portfolio income yield while attempting to reduce fluctuations in total market value (and, as a result, producing smaller investment returns). While the minimum fee generally applies to all accounts below $400,000, we do manage client portfolios as small as $200,000 (the average portfolio size is $900,000). Portfolios less than $200,000 generally start by investing in the Bullfinch Fund Unrestricted Series (see below).
Independent Fiduciary ConsultantsSM, a division of Carosa Stanton – This division provides an exclusive fiduciary consulting service to 401k plan trustees and fiduciaries who seek to reduce their fiduciary liability. We created this division to provide a truly independent consulting service to 401k plans ranging from $5 million to $50 million (the average client size is roughly $6 million). This is an underserved market that still relies on bundled service providers that may contain either higher fee structures or hidden conflicts-of-interest. To guarantee true independence, all 401k plans that desire the benefits of Independent Fiduciary ConsultantsSM must sign an agreement that prevents the plan from hiring Carosa Stanton’s Privately Managed Portfolio service and prohibits the plan from investing in the Bullfinch Fund. Clients are most attracted to this service because it is independent, provides a formal Investment Policy Statement that incorporates the company’s mission statement (per ERISA), incorporates procedures consistent with compliance auditing purposes, formally documents the plan’s investment due diligence process, and provides semi-annual due-diligence reports. Finally, clients like the option we offer concerning the provision of trustee and employee education.
Bullfinch Fund – A Family of No-Load Mutual Funds – Carosa Stanton is the sole investment adviser to the Bullfinch Fund family of no-load mutual funds. Like other mutual funds, the principals of Carosa Stanton also serve as officers to the Bullfinch Fund. We currently offer two mutual funds, each created for investors seeking long-term growth. Those interested in the funds should consult the prospectus before investing. The Unrestricted Series was created for investors who like the conservative long-term investment discipline of Carosa Stanton but do not (yet) have enough assets to afford the benefits of a privately managed portfolio. Typical shareholders include individuals and families who have just begun in earnest to build an investment portfolio, small business owners who have just created or already have long-established retirement plans (SEP-IRAs seem to be the most popular), and individuals who have changed jobs and want to maintain control over their retirement assets by rolling over their retirement assets from their former employer’s plan into an IRA Rollover. While we do have similar shareholders in the Western New York Series, most of our Western New York shareholders invest in this regional mutual fund because they wish to promote Western New York. The average size of each shareholder’s account in the Unrestricted Series is $77,000. The average size of each shareholder’s account in the Western New York Series is $42,000. Although the minimum initial contribution is $2,500, it is in the best interest of all shareholders (in order to avoid having large shareholders subsidize smaller shareholders) that new shareholders invest at least $10,000. To further help protect shareholders, we also discourage market timers from investing in our Funds.
