Investment Management

Investment Management

Individualized Fee-Only Investing


Goals, timing and risk tolerance—they’re different for each client. We believe in listening. We believe in doing the right thing. And as a fiduciary with a fee-only compensation structure, there’s no pressure to do anything but what’s right for each client.

Our investment relationships begin with a face-to-face conversation. This allows Albion and potential clients to discuss financial goals and investment philosophies—laying the foundation for a personalized and integrated long-term investment plan. If you have $1M or more of investable assets, please contact us.

Albion senior wealth advisor

Investment Management Services:

Our investment research process begins on the macroeconomic level. We monitor changes in statistics such as GDP growth rates, inflation, interest rates, the business cycle, productivity, and employment in order to identify trends, both obvious and subtle in our effort to find appropriate investment opportunities. Our understanding of these domestic and international economic indicators, as well as thoughtful analysis of world events, allow us to build client investment portfolios with a strong fundamental core.

Our portfolio managers are responsible for constructing and maintaining specific investment accounts based on a client’s stated investment policy coupled with industry and economic trends. Portfolio managers determine, within stated guidelines, overall portfolio composition and specific security selection.

Albion applies our depth of knowledge in considering the micro and macro factors that will likely impact the fixed income markets and uses that data to construct and manage fixed income portfolios. Albion utilizes a variety of instruments including corporate bonds, municipal bonds, Treasuries and other Government backed securities, as well as foreign currency denominated bonds to fulfill the risk parameters of each specific portfolio.

Albion’s team of analysts regularly analyzes Mutual Fund positions on behalf of our clients. Often these funds are held inside a company 401(k) and with our guidance, offered in the context of each client’s overriding financial goals, we help optimize the probability of long-term success.

Albion provides access to non-publicly traded investments through a separate partnership called Albion Funds. The primary focus of Albion Funds is to provide exposure to attractive private equity and venture capital opportunities. Albion does this by pooling client funds as doing so provides clients the opportunity to diversify their holdings among several outside venture and private equity funds. Importantly, Albion Funds is large enough to attract the interest of fund managers where individual sized investments may not meet the fund’s minimum investment requirements.

We seek funds that add value not by financial re-engineering but by providing operational assistance to help grow the portfolio companies. Albion Funds also invests directly in private equity and venture opportunities where Albion has insight into the company, the marketplace and/or the management team. Albion is widely viewed as a value added investor by both the management team at the portfolio company and by the venture partners that invite Albion to participate with them. With a fund size of under $25 million, Albion Funds fills a very attractive niche; adding value by providing unique insights and actionable advice but not so large that Albion’s investment size materially reduces our partner’s ability to deploy their desired capital.

Albion has decades of experience helping clients diversify their low basis stock. Whether the low basis comes from inherited positions or long term holdings, we can help you to develop a strategy for diversifying these investments and locking in their gains while minimizing the risk such highly concentrated positions could have on your portfolio and long-term financial goals.

Albion staffs its own in-house independent research and trading group. Comprised of qualified and experienced financial professionals, our research team observes and analyzes important economic variables that provide direction and discipline when choosing investments. From broad sweeping macro trends to corporate financial statements, Albion research provides insight into the complex global markets fostering sound investment choices.

Our trading team is responsible for the implementation of our investment strategy. By keeping our trading in house and utilizing top tier systems and software, we are able to move quickly and decisively with minimal impact on the underlying securities in which we invest.

Through the use of both common and preferred stock, Albion gives clients the ability to directly invest in healthy corporations, allowing for participation in the growth and financial prosperity of individual companies poised for continued success as well as exposure to the long-term growth of the global economic system.

Albion has been investing in Exchange Traded Funds since the early days of this type of tool. We have made it our business to understand how Exchange Traded Funds work, understand the differences between similar sounding funds, and understand where the risks and opportunities lie. While simple in concept Exchange Traded Funds contain an underlying complexity that, without specialized knowledge, could create unintended adverse consequences to an investor’s portfolio. Our research allows us to provide the benefits of these useful tools to Albion clients while avoiding the often misunderstood risks.

Options can be used in a variety of ways, ranging from hedging an existing security position to holding positions that offer the potential to profit from a rise or fall in an underlying market. The Albion investment team is well versed in the opportunities and risks available through the use of options and works with clients to determine if such strategies would be consistent with client objectives.

Many mid and high level executives own stock options as a component of an overall compensation package. The complexity of these packages often makes it a challenge for the executive to understand the true value of the options and to then formulate a plan for maximizing the eventual value while minimizing risk. Albion works through these issues regularly and has a strong record of successfully guiding the discussion of what the options are worth and how they should be handled in the context of the executive’s overriding long-term financial goals.

The securities managed in our ‘ESG portfolio’ are screened on a range of social criteria and selected in a conscientious way. We carry out in-house research on environmental, social, and governance issues as well as employing third party services to identify sustainable companies based on how they respect their employees, customers, stakeholders, communities, and the natural environment. No company is perfect. Yet firms with a meaningful ESG philosophy and are, within reason, using this as a principled compass in running their business are good candidates for the portfolio. The investments selected on ESG merit must also meet our high financial standards and business analysis requirements representing the bedrock of good investing.

Our Story

In the summer of 1982, Toby Levitt and John Bird found themselves discussing flaws prevalent among financial firms nationwide. “Although there was lip service to the idea of putting the client first,” recalls Bird, “at the end of the day, advisors got paid for selling a product.”

The two envisioned a firm free from any product sales agenda, a firm where clients truly come first. This vision became a reality later that year when Levitt and Bird founded Albion Financial Group: a fee-only Registered Investment Advisor (RIA) legally and culturally committed to each client’s best interest. A fee-only pioneer, Albion has become a nationally recognized, award-winning investment manager and wealth advisor. And, no surprise, the client still comes first.

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