Conger Opens Her Own Wealth Advisory Company

Cynthia Conger, a founding partner who disappeared from Arkansas Financial Group in July, is back.

She’s in business for herself this time, and she’s on a mission.

But it’s not a mission one normally associates with someone who was recently named to Worth magazine’s top 100 wealth advisers in the nation. She’s the only person in Arkansas to make this year’s list.

After practicing as a financial adviser with AFG for 20 years, Conger opened her own firm Sept. 1, Cynthia L. Conger CPA PA.

Now she is free — and has the means — to focus on what she refers to as “women in transition.”

“Young widows, say under 55, and divorcees have different needs,” Conger said.

Some of that empathy she feels comes from her own background: When she was 40, she became a single mom with two teenagers.

“I feel for them. I want to help them, give them support and help build their confidence to where they can make good decisions,” Conger said.

Many women, when they are most vulnerable, are ill-advised and taken advantage of, she said.

Conger is still proud of her role in starting Arkansas Financial Group, but said, “I know this is going to be successful too. I feel passionate about it.”

“I’ve accomplished a lot of my goals in life, but I’m going into another successful business now and I have the freedom to be able to be very selective,” she said.

She took 30 clients with her when she left AFG and her tax practice. Conger is a certified public accountant in addition to those other alphabet soup credentials that follow the names of financial planners.

But rapid growth is not an immediate goal.

“I want to be able to enjoy working with those I work with,” she said.

Single women aren’t her only clients, of course, but that’s where her heart is. She handles other clients and does the accounting for one family business.

Worth magazine said its editors only considered wealth advisers with at least 10 years’ experience and those who have proven capable of managing accounts of at least $10 million.

Among the criteria they look at are educational credentials, compensation structure, client retention rate, outlook on the investment climate and model portfolio returns.

According to a news release, those selected for the list “devised and executed the most innovative yet appropriate solutions to the clients’ complex financial problems.”

Why Leave?

Why did she leave Arkansas Financial Group?

“It was a difference of opinion in direction,” she said. “[Partners Rick Adkins and Kristina Bolhouse] wanted to take the company in a direction that I didn’t. I decided it was time for a change.”

That’s all she would say about the departure, other than to say it was an amicable one.

Adkins agreed that the two longtime partners remain close. He said the split was over being able to provide comprehensive wealth management without tying in the tax preparation business. Adkins and Bolhouse wanted to separate it; Conger didn’t. Adkins said he’ll refer some of his clients to Conger for tax prep.

Conger sees her role as threefold: financial planning, asset management and tax preparation.

She still thinks highly of Adkins and considers him her mentor.

The two met in the summer of 1983, she said, and he is the one who outlined what financial planning could be. Adkins also has made Worth magazine’s list of top financial planners in the past, as well as other honors.

“What I learned from Rick is still the heart and soul of what I do,” Conger said. “His vision of financial planning is what I adopted and lived with for the past 20 years.”

She does have an 11-month noncompete agreement with AFG.

She remains a partner with Adkins in the Financial Decision Institute, a joint venture of rival financial planners that was formed by Adkins, Conger, Barry Corkern and the late Larry Waschka to help less-affluent clients. She said, however, she has no management responsibilities with FDI.

The New Company

The new company that bears her name has $32 million in assets under management.

Like some 80 percent of wealth advisers, Conger has a fee-based business: 1.5 percent for the first $500,000 under management. The average length of time her clients have been with Conger is 11 years. The median client net worth is $1.4 million.

Much of her business is word-of-mouth: referrals from clients and friends.

“I love making a difference in people’s lives, she said. “Being a wealth adviser is truly a trust relationship. It simply won’t work without it.

“It’s about more than just asset management. It’s about building relationships. I help clients deal with both financial and nonfinancial decisions. I show them options and believe that given enough information they’ll make good decisions,” she said.

Conger has built her reputation around her common-sense approach and her ability to see the big picture.

Conger said the people who would choose to come to her are very strong relationship-oriented people. She notes that more than a fifth of those who made the wealth adviser list in Worth are women. Conger thinks that relatively high number is because women are more relationship-oriented than men.

Clients who come to Conger turn over the complete management of their assets to her — 100 percent — or she won’t take them.

Of course, she has fiduciary responsibility for her clients — she’s charged with investing her clients’ assets wisely to benefit them.

“I literally have my clients’ lives in my hands,” Conger said.

Another goal is to help people in, or about to enter, retirement.

“A lot of people are getting close to retirement, but they are not ready psychologically for retirement. You have to ask yourself, ‘What am I retiring to — not from,'” she said.

She guides her clients into what might be a second career or helps them discover what they’re really going to do with the rest of their lives.

That kind of 24/7 service is what has led to the growth of wealth advisers across the nation. Although a relatively small part of the financial services industry, it has grown rapidly after all the scandals in the large brokerage and investment firms. There’s thought to be around 115,000 wealth advisers nationwide now.

What people appear to be looking for is just what Conger provides: personalized service from someone who is looking out for their best interest.

A survey of super-rich clients, those with a net worth of $5 million or more, showed many are turning to “objective” financial advisers. The industry survey conducted by the Spectrem Group, a Chicago investment research firm, said 65 percent of the 300 people surveyed say they avoided financial advisers affiliated with a brokerage, bank, insurance or mutual fund company because they thought they might receive biased advice.

The rationale is that the fee-based system, whether hourly or percentage, is less prone to abusive sales practices, such as when large investment firms offer brokers higher commission fees for in-house funds that may not be in the best interest of the client.

The fee-based model, because advisers are not tied to pushing specific products, appears to generate more trust and confidence among the wealthy clients. Plus clients get a lot of high-end, customized service and they’re willing to pay for it. So it’s easy to see why wealth management can also be one of the most profitable sectors of the financial services industry

There looks to be plenty of growth among the wealthy to keep the wealth advisers busy. The number of millionaires in the U.S. reached record highs last year, hitting 7.5 million, according to another Spectrem Group survey. That’s up 21 percent over the previous year.

The firm found the ranks of the very wealthiest Americans, those with investable assets of more than $5 million, grew 38 percent in 2004.

Conger said a lot people work hard, save, invest and manage their own money until they hit a point, usually around $1 million, when it dawns on them that they have something to lose.

So even though they’ve done remarkably well in growing their assets, they come to wealth advisers to help them protect what they’ve earned — to help them manage it. Some wealth advisers compare it to hiring their own chief financial officer.

The secret to her success?

“I persevere,” she said. “I’m persistent. I never say I can’t do it. I don’t let obstacles stop me.”