Harbor Investment Advisory is a registered Investment Advisor established in 2010 and has operations in 27 states in The United States. Headquartered in Lutherville, Maryland in Baltimore County, this Agency provides different types of investment and financial planning services. With a team of 27 licensed advisors, the firm has 2,427 clients with a 1:90 advisor/client ration. They have managed $2.8 billion through their financial advisory services.
Focused Specializations of Practice Groups
The services of Harbor Investment Advisory include:
Private Wealth Advisory
The Harbor Private Wealth Advisory is targeted to families and individuals seeking investment-related and financial planning services. This division is for affluent families, High net individuals, business owners and executives.
Institutional Advisory
The Harbor Institutional advisory provides customized portfolio design for affluent families and organizations. These are objectively curated for ultra-high net worth families, private foundations, non-profit organizations, family offices and complex trusts and LLCs.
Retirement Plan Consulting
The Harbor Retirement Plan consulting gives retirement plan advisory services for plan sponsors to meet their current fiduciary goals while adhering to a competitive retirement plan for employees. This consists of Corporate Retirement Plans, 401(k) & 403(b) DC Plans, NQDC Plans, Profit Sharing Plans and Participant Education.
Practice Groups of Expertise
Harbor Investment Agency has practice groups each of which has its focus area specialization that delivers objective advice for the financial planning of clients. These are:
Artisan Wealth Advisory Group: Fox, Winslow, Hill
They offer wealth management solutions for wealthy investors and affluent families. With an artisan approach, they help individuals reduce their tax liabilities through asset retitling, draw NQDC plans for tax management, review insurance policies to protect the paid premiums and identify ways to maximize Social Security techniques. Apart from managing investments, they also map a path to convert the investments to income via statistical tools and research & planning.
Black Sullivan Group
This group serves the private foundations and corporate executives in portfolio design and execution. Some of the other premier investment solutions they provide are in due diligence of investment and manager, single bonds fixed income management, reporting, stock management and restricted securities.
Champe S. Andrews, III
This is for small business owners, retirees, individuals and families. Their areas of focus include risk mitigation, investment portfolio design and retirement plan services.
Curran Knittle Group
Their practice focus is for special needs financial planning, strategies for wealth planning, risk management for asset allocation and portfolio design for individual securities targeted at high net worth families.
Debbie Cameron
A financial advisor with 25 years experience who has worked on large retirement plans, endowments, high net worth families and corporate executives.
Greg Paranzino
A financial adviser who has experience in extensive investment plans. His expertise across domains of financial planning, investments and economics, allows him to identify the right investment managers and techniques while serving institutional customers.
Horizon Group: Geoff Burroughs
This practice group is for multi-generational families, individual families approaching retirement, divorcees and retirees. Their goal focussed investing technique, integrating financial planning and divorce services comprise their core service areas.
Kelly Novak Group
This practice group is for corporate executives and financial service executives. The Kelly Novak group provides services in investment policy formulation, portfolio design and management, generational wealth transfer, hedging and risk management strategies and outsourced insurance consultation.
Poe Group
This is a group of independent investment managers who focus on legacy creation as well as retirement planning.
Robert Laubach
Focuses on affluent families and investors with wealth management services
Ward Halleron Group
This group of consultants specializes in ERISA plans, 401 (k) and 403 (b) Plan Evaluations as well as Benchmarking, Fiduciary Services for 3(21) and 3(38) and support for 3(16). These plans are part of their offerings for business and corporation, HNI families, Non-profit companies and corporate executives.
Asset Safety
The Harbor Investment Advisory has an agreement with The Bank of New York Mellon subsidiary, Pershing LLC. Being associated with one of the leading service providers of securities operating since 1784 guarantees credibility to the institution. It is not tracked by the SEC and FINRA because they don’t monitor the performance of portfolios. So there is no historical data to fall back on. The firm is a Broker-Dealer and has also mentioned in their disclosures of trading recommended securities.
Final Verdict
For High-net families and businesses looking for wealth management services, the Harbor Investment Advisory can be a good option. Their scale of operations across 27 states is a testament to their services catering to different audiences. Being affiliated with a respected financial organization also certifies their commitment to quality services and safekeeping of customer assets. The one thing to ask for clarification on is how they handle being a dual-registered as broker-dealer. In theory this can lead to compensation related conflicts of interest and hidden fees. On the other hand they have absolutely no disciplinary actions in any category with the SEC. On the whole, they seem to be a great company and worth being on your list of top prospects as a financial advisor.