Page 27 - BusinessWest January 6, 2025

For a new client, the first meeting starts with an exchange of information, as the client learns about the firm’s overall approach and generally conser- vative philosophy, and the team learns about the client’s financial life: assets, liabilities, income, and expenses.
All that is the starting point for developing a strategy, which considers how assets are managed and allocated, beneficiary designations and how they fit within an estate plan, and more. Once in place, the plan isn’t static, but is reviewed and adjusted as needed, as the markets, the economy, and the cli- ent’s own life circumstances change.
“On an annual basis, you’ll come in, and we’ll review the plan and assess whether we are on track to meet your goals,” Suffish said. “And the goals
can be five, 10, 15, 20 years away. So at the start, let’s set a plan, let’s set an asset allocation, let’s figure out some stocks or ETFs [exchange-trad- ed funds] or mutual funds that are going to be the right tools to get us
to that goal. And then, on an annual basis, let’s review the plan, review the assets, review how things are doing, and see if we’re still on track to be where we want to be in 20 years.”
income that they’re getting from their current job and their current salary and building a portfolio around that — building it around income and conser- vative growth.”
In any case, risk tolerance is impor- tant to assess up front, he added, and it does tend to diminish as time goes on, and the client gets ever closer to need- ing investments, rather than salary, to pay the bills. That’s even more critical at a time when Americans are living longer than ever before, and someone may need to fund 30 post-retirement years, or more.
“If you’re retiring at a traditional, 65-year-old retirement age and we’re
doing the planning out to age 95, we do have conversations with our clients about longevity and family history and your personal history and your health — that’s all part of it. But just to be con- servative, planning out to age 90 or 95 is something that we all need to do.”
Expanding Footprint
Again, Suffish said, 100 years is something to be celebrated, and even the firm’s growth in just his 20 years there has been impressive. In those two decades, St. Germain has grown from around seven employees to 50, now operating out of four offices — in Springfield, Northampton, Lee, and
Plymouth — along with a satellite office in Mississippi and plans to open anoth- er office in New Hampshire.
Meanwhile, assets under manage- ment have grown from around $600 million 20 years ago to more than $3 billion today.
That’s a lot of investments support- ing a lot of goals and plans, and Matty, Suffish, and the rest of the team don’t take the responsibility lightly.
“We’ve been around a long time,” Suffish said, “and it’s because we try to do things right for our clients all the time. It does make a difference.” BW
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Mike Matty has been president of St. Germain for the past quarter- century.
While clients of all ages and stages of life partner with St. Germain, Suf- fish noted, “we’re in the business of wealth management, and when you look at demographics in the U.S., the wealth tends to be in the 50-plus-year- olds, not the 20-year-olds, so our cli- ent base mirrors that. But everybody has different goals when they come
to us.”
For example, a young person just starting out at work, opening up an IRA, might want to be very aggres- sive because he or she can tolerate the volatility that goes along with that strategy.
“But if someone comes in to us at 60 years old and they’ve got a handful of years left until they’re retiring, it’s going to be a different conversation,” Suffish said. “It’s about replacing the
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