Client Relationship Summary
INTRODUCTION
Plum Street Advisors LLC (referred to herein as “we,” “us,” or “our”) is registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission as an investment adviser. Brokerage and investment advisory services and fees differ and it is important for you to understand these differences. Free and simple tools are available for you to use to research firms and financial professionals at www.Investor.gov/CRS, which also provides educational materials about broker-dealers, investment advisors, and investing.
WHAT INVESTMENT SERVICES AND ADVICE CAN YOU PROVIDE ME?
Our firm provides investment advisory services to individuals and high net-worth individuals. Our services combine financial planning and portfolio management services to meet your individual needs. We interfuse financial planning advice and recommendations with portfolio management strategies to determine your needs. No minimum investment amount is required to engage our firm for investment advisory services. We use the data regarding your financial circumstances, investment goals and objectives, tax status, and other factors to develop an investment policy statement. The investment policy statement assists us in developing an investment portfolio to meet your financial objective.
Our firm only provides portfolio management services under discretionary authority. The advisory contract you sign gives our firm discretionary authority to make decisions (initial and ongoing) about your investment portfolio. When we use discretionary authority, our investment decisions do not require your approval; however, we implement the agreed upon investment management strategy based on your investment policy statement and analysis of your financial circumstances. Client portfolios are typically invested in exchange-traded funds, mutual funds, cash equivalents, and occasionally options. Although we have discretionary authority, you may impose reasonable restrictions on our authority. Typical limits might include investments in certain asset classes, industries, companies, or specific dollar amounts in the foregoing.
We monitor your investment portfolio continuously during our advisory relationship. We use our discretionary authority to make adjustments to the investments in your portfolio(s) as a result of changes in economic or market conditions or other relevant factors, such as a change in your financial circumstances. For additional information, please use the hyperlinks here to review the Advisory Services, Types of Clients, and Investment Discretion sections in our Brochure.
Ask your financial professional these questions about our relationships and services:
- Given my situation, should I choose an investment advisory service? Why or Why not?
- How will you choose investments to recommend to me?
- What is your relevant experience, including your licenses, education and other qualifications? What do these qualifications mean?
WHAT FEES WILL I PAY?
You will pay fees and costs whether you make or lose money on your investments. Fees and costs will reduce any amount of money you make on your investments over time. Please make sure you understand what fees and costs you are paying.
Our firm charges an annual asset-based investment advisory fee. The fee is based on a percent of the value of the investments in the portfolio we manage for you. Our investment management fee schedule is negotiable.
We bill you quarterly in arrears for our portfolio management services. Quarterly in arrears means at the end of each calendar quarter. The fee calculation is based on the value of the investment assets in your portfolio(s), including accrued interest, on the last business day of the previous quarter. For advisory fee calculation and billing purposes, we group accounts held by members of the same household.
In addition to the advisory fees you pay us, additional fees and costs are associated with investing. These include transaction costs, internal mutual fund expenses, wire transfer, and electronic fund transfer fees, mailing fees, insufficient funds fees, and regulatory fees for securities sold, among others. Please feel free to inquire about additional fees and costs that impact your investments. We will provide you with a detailed listing of fees and expenses upon your request.
For additional information, please use the hyperlink here to review the Fees and Compensation section in our Brochure.
Ask your financial professional this question about the impact of fees and costs on investments:
• Help me understand how these fees and costs might affect my investments. If I give you $10,000, how much will go to fees and costs, and how much will be invested for me?
WHAT ARE YOUR LEGAL OBLIGATIONS TO ME WHEN ACTING AS MY INVESTMENT ADVISOR? HOW ELSE DOES YOUR FIRM MAKE MONEY AND WHAT CONFLICTS DO YOU HAVE?
When we act as your investment advisor, we have a fiduciary duty to act in your best interest and not put our interests ahead of yours. At the same time, the way we make money creates some conflicts with your interests. You should understand and ask us about these conflicts because they can affect the investment advice we provide you. Here are some examples to help you understand what this means.
Our legal obligation to you requires us to act with a substantial duty of care and to operate pursuant to a commitment of loyalty which means that we are required to provide advice and recommendations that are in your best interest.
In adhering to our duty of care mandate, we must obtain detailed information regarding your financial circumstances. We must ensure our recommendations align with those financial circumstances. We must also conduct due diligence regarding the investments we recommend to you and monitor our recommendations continually over the advisory relationship.
Our duty of loyalty to you requires our firm to provide advice that is free from self-interest and to always place your interests before our own. We must make full and fair disclosure of all material facts related to our advisory services. We are also required to avoid or disclose circumstances where our interests actually conflict, could potentially conflict, or have an appearance of conflict with your interests.
The way our firm makes money conflicts with your interests. We make money by charging you an asset-based investment advisory fee. The prospect of additional fee revenue incentivizes us to encourage you to invest more assets with us. We earn additional advisory fees as a result of managing more investment assets for you. The incentive to increase our assets under management and fee revenue creates an inherent conflict with your interests.
Please use the hyperlinks here to review the Code of Ethics and Brokerage Practices sections in our Brochure.
Ask your financial professional this question about our conflicts of interest:
• How might your conflicts of interest affect me, and how will you address them?
HOW DO YOUR FINANCIAL PROFESSIONALS MAKE MONEY?
Our financial professionals are paid a salary from our firm. Some financial professionals also receive a percentage of the firm’s revenues earned from the investment assets that clients engage us to manage.
DO YOU OR YOUR FINANCIAL PROFESSIONALS HAVE A LEGAL OR DISCIPLINARY HISTORY?
NO. Neither our firm nor financial professionals have a legal or disciplinary history. Please also visit www.investor.gov/crs for a free and simple search tool to research our firm and financial professionals.
Ask your financial professional these questions about legal or disciplinary history information:
• As a financial professional, do you have any disciplinary history? For what type of conduct?
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
For additional information about our investment advisory services, visit our website www.plumstreetadvisors.com or review the full copy of our Brochure, as attached. If you would like additional, up-to-date information or a copy of this relationship summary, please contact David Dirks, chief compliance officer, at (781) 514-5142 or email david.dirks@plumstreetadvisors.com.
Ask your financial professional these questions about our firm and supervisory contacts:
• Who is my primary contact person? Is he or she a representative of an investment advisor or broker-dealer? Who can I talk to if I have concerns about how this person is treating me?