Departing from 14 years with Northwestern Mutual, David Eisenhauer has launched a new independent registered investment advisory firm in Danville, California.
Acting as chief wealth strategist, Eisenhauer launched Greykasell Wealth Strategies along with an office manager (also his wife) and directors of investments and operations, all of whom joined him in the move. The team managed $450 million for Northwestern's 100 clients.
Greykasell (named for Eisenhauer's three children, Greydon, Kason and Ellie) provides tax-optimized financial planning, asset management and estate planning services to individual families. Business and benefits planning, succession services and qualified retirement plan consulting are available to business owners.
“Customer needs have continued to evolve and their responses have evolved,” Eisenhauer told W.healthManagement.com. “And it's really been about things like eliminating trade tariffs, better technology, stronger tax planning, improved or better trust services, higher fiduciary duty and things of that nature. So as we assessed where the industry is today and where it is going in the future, we knew we had to make a change.”
While legal considerations have kept Greykasell from contacting the clients he served at Northwestern, Eisenhauer expects most will eventually follow him to the new firm.
“This move is for them and based on their feedback,” he said.
Eisenhauer considered joining an RIA platform like Dynasty or Sanctuary, and even talked to a few hybrids and other broker/dealers before deciding to go out on his own.
“To drive value where the customer's needs are in one year, two years, five years, this really seemed to be the right fit so that we could control how we're representing ourselves to customers and be able to we drive that extreme. level of value that we want to create,” he said.
The firm has selected Fidelity and Schwab to provide most of its custodial services, designating Fidelity as its primary partner and adopting Black Diamond as its CRM. Eisenhauer said the Fidelity platform's security and integration capabilities, as well as the custodian's ability to offer high-yield money market sweeps, were key factors in the selection.
“Making the move to independence is an exciting milestone, and we are eager to support the team's continued growth and unwavering focus on meeting the increasingly complex needs of their clients,” Fidelity's Chief Institutional Officer said in a statement. Customer Growth, Rohit Mahna.
Greykasell's portfolio management fees range from .3% to 1.65% of assets under management, while financial planning will be charged as a flat fee based on complexity and time requirements, except where an hourly fee may apply. The firm has set a minimum balance of $1 million for client accounts (allowing for some exceptions), but Eisenhauer said ideally it will be closer to $4 million.
“What we realized by working with family members' legacy accounts and then with individuals who have high incomes but haven't had the opportunity to accumulate that much yet is that we still have the opportunity to really plan impactful,” he explained. “And so, we decided to move our minimum to that million per account so that we weren't turning off customers that we could grow with.”
Eisenhauer sees no limit to Greykasell's growth potential and said the goal is to reach $1 billion in assets “in the not-too-distant future.”
“Without sacrificing the level of service we're currently providing,” he said. “So that means we're going to have to continue to expand the team in a healthy way, so we're keeping the quality and value at the highest level, but that's going to be where we're trending and we're going to to target as we. continue to grow. And we think that's really the platform that we've tried to build and be able to execute on.”