The Winner’s Circle has proved its mettle as an enduring institution in the financial industry. A program for ranking the best financial advisors, it is widely respected as a means for recognizing and transmitting best practices in the advisory field. This year, as in previous years,
Research
joins in congratulating all the winners and takes a closer look at a few who made the cut. In what follows, we focus on four impressive teams.
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for a complete list of Horizontal, Vertical and Family Teams.
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Eckerline
,
Bencini
and Boyd
Group
Merrill Lynch,
Wayzata
,
Minn
.
$1.8 billion in assets under management
The
Eckerline
,
Bencini
and Boyd
Group
’s management structure is so flat that even the client associates can almost squeeze onto the top line. Of the six associates, one has an MBA, one has the CFP certification, one has the CRPC designation and five of them have their Series 7 registration.
This level of knowledge among the assistants is just one of the elements that sets the Minneapolis-area Merrill Lynch team apart from the competition, says Peter
Eckerline
, the senior partner. For many years Peter has been recognized as one of
Barron
’s Top 100 advisors by The Winner’s Circle, and his two primary partners, Christina Boyd and Barbara
Bencini
. Boyd and
Bencini
were both named to
Barron
’s Top 100 Women Financial Advisors list in 2008. The average tenure of the three senior partners is over 20 years.
“We have a very deep bench,”
Eckerline
says. He has an MBA and a chartered retirement planning consultant designation.
Bencini
has a CFP certification and a certified investment management
analysts
designation. Whatever resources they don’t have on staff they have readily available within Merrill Lynch.
“This business has become so much more complex, and high-net-worth clients are demanding the best of the best, and we want to provide that,”
Eckerline
says. Having a strong team in place that can advise clients throughout their financial lives, from college savings and home financing to estate planning services and retirement income
strategies,
is critical to meeting the increasingly sophisticated needs of the high-net-worth client base.
“We utilize a lot of Merrill Lynch tools, such as Wealth Outlook and Retirement Income Service,” he says. “We deal with a lot of boomers who are either retired or heading in that direction and need help with the transition from asset accumulation to distribution.”