Transcript:
Hi, I’m Buddy Ozanne, president of Probity Advisors. My career in financial services began in 1971 when I went to work with my father helping individuals and families understand the tax consequences or tax burden inherent in their estates. Given that in those days the top death tax rate was as high as seventy percent — if you can imagine that. My father and I helped our clients reduce the size of their taxable burden to help preserve more of an individual’s or family’s assets for their heirs and loved ones and for future generations. As you can imagine, the clients we worked with were incredibly grateful and we continued to grow those relationships.
While working with my father I gained tremendous insight into the advantages and benefits of having a solid estate plan in place and I saw just how much the work we were doing was helping families build better financial foundations and futures. I also gained extensive experience in business valuation, business succession planning, and retirement planning. Over the years I’ve had the good fortune of working with numerous, brilliant, successful, talented, wonderful clients and I realized that my clients can be incredibly intelligent about the work they do but they had a tremendous need for trusted unbiased advice and I became the person they could rely on for advice about their financial lives and to help them make really good and really smart decisions in order to be secure financially.
In the late 1990s, I began creating custom portfolios for clients where their assets weren’t commingled with other investors and where each portfolio was a diversified set of investments specific to each client’s goals, time, horizon, and risk profile. I soon made strategic hires to grow the firm to include two CFAs (chartered financial analysts). The CFA is a professional accreditation that is widely considered be the gold standard in our business. These two individuals have been with the firm for almost 15 years and we brought onboard additional advisors who subscribed to the same ethos and commitment to doing right by clients.
As a team, we embrace the concept a fee-only investment management and comprehensive planning services long before this business model was adopted by other advisors. We grew our firm by providing transparent financial services to our clients and serving as fiduciaries which means we obligate ourselves to put clients interests first and to act with the highest level of integrity.
Our core expertise is helping our clients plan for a sound and secure financial future. Our clients include:
- young families who have just started out and are thinking about building a solid financial future
- business owners who want to secure their businesses and also help their employees save for retirement through workplace savings plans
- individuals who are nearing or are in retirement
- and we also work with clients who may be experiencing a significant financial transition
I think the biggest testament to our commitment to our clients is that our advisors are working with multiple generations of families — families that have been with and stayed with our firm for decades. This speaks volumes about our client satisfaction in the trust we have built through long-term relationships.
In addition, our firm has received industry recognition and accolades and Probity Advisors has won the Fidelity ‘Be Greater’ award for registered investment advisory firms with 250 million to 1 billion dollars in assets under management. Fidelity noted in its announcement that our firms open and transparent communication style and motto of ‘do right by clients and success will come,’ helped us stand out among all the other firms considered for the award from across the country. The annual national award recognizes advisory firms that demonstrate excellence in five key business areas, including strategy, talent, technology and operations, risk and regulatory, and client focus.
Interested in learning more? Book time to speak with me today.