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Orgel Wealth Management is a financial advisory firm headquartered in Altoona, Wis., with a second office in Minnetonka, Minn. It works with individual investors and families to manage their investment portfolios and provide financial planning guidance. The firm’s team also works with institutional investors, among others, and offers services to manage employer-sponsored retirement plans. A minimum investment of $1 million is generally required to become a client, though exceptions are made.
The bottom line: Orgel Wealth Management is a financial advisory firm with locations in Wisconsin and Minnesota, and a general $1 million investment requirement, although it does make exceptions.
| Assets under management (AUM): $5,618,834,000 | |
| Minimum investment: $1 million | |
| Individual investor to advisor ratio: 142:1 | |
| Fee structure: A percentage of AUM, fixed fees | |
| Headquarters: 20 Rivers Edge Drive Altoona, WI 54720 Website: www.orgelwealth.com Phone: 715-835-6525 |
All information included in this profile is accurate as of March 27, 2022. For more information, please consult Orgel Wealth Management’s website.
Orgel Wealth Management was officially formed in 2013 by Mark Orgel, its current chairman, though its roots date back to 1984 through predecessor practices. It is a full-service, independent wealth management firm that currently has over 50 employees, around 21 of whom perform investment advisory and research roles. Three of the firm’s principals hold the chartered financial analyst (CFA) designation and three are certified financial planners (CFPs).
The firm is wholly employee-owned, with no employee owning more than 25% of the company.
The firm’s clients are predominantly individual investors who do not qualify as high net worth individuals. However, it also serves a large number of high net worth individuals, which the SEC defines as someone who has at least $750,000 in assets under management or a net worth of at least $1.5 million.
While Orgel generally requires new clients to invest a minimum of $1 million, it may accept smaller accounts at its discretion, as indicated by its large portion of individual investors without a high net worth. Additionally, families can combine all of their accounts to reach the firm’s $1 million threshold.
Most clients tap Orgel to manage their investment portfolios. The firm’s team will conduct a lengthy conversation with clients to determine their goals, risk tolerance and time horizon, and then craft a portfolio tailored specifically to the client. Trades are placed on a discretionary basis, meaning the firm does not first need the client’s approval. Rather, clients give their advisor broad discretion to choose what, and how much, to buy and sell on a daily basis, although clients can provide some parameters.
The firm also can make recommendations for insurance and estate plans, but it does not actually sell insurance products, draft estate plans or file tax returns, and instead refers clients to outside professionals for these tasks.
For employers, Orgel offers assistance with the management of employer-sponsored retirement plans, including plan design, fees, recordkeeping, participant education and investment advice.
Here is a full list of services offered by Orgel Wealth Management:
Orgel Wealth Management crafts each client’s portfolio based on their specific needs, goals and objectives, risk tolerance and time horizon.
When deciding which investments to use, Orgel relies on an approach that combines fundamental and technical analysis. Fundamental analysis considers details such as the strength of the company’s management team, its competitive positioning and its financial condition. Technical factors analyzed include past market patterns, moving averages and price correlations, with the goal of identifying trends that likely have more to do with investor sentiment than the fundamentals of the investment.
The firm believes that the key to achieving long-term returns and mitigation risk is to take a disciplined approach to asset allocation. Client’s funds are invested primarily in mutual funds, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), stocks and bonds, though portfolios may also include private debt and equity, hedge funds and real estate investment trusts (REITs).
The firm’s fees cover services including portfolio management and any financial planning or consulting services a client requests. The fee is calculated as a percentage of a client’s total assets under management. Most new clients will pay an annual fee of 0.50% for the first $5 million invested, and that rate drops the more money they invest, as you can see in the table below.
| Fee Schedule for Orgel Wealth Management | |
|---|---|
| Assets under management | Annual rate |
| First $5 million | 0.50% |
| Next $5 million (amount over $5 million to $10 million) | 0.40% |
| Next $15 million (amount over $10 million to $25 million) | 0.50% |
| Next $25 million (amount over $25 million to $50 million) | 0.25% |
| Over $50 million | 0.10% |
Generally, the fee also covers your custodian fees if you use Pershing, LLC as your custodian, which the firm recommends. If you choose a custodian other than Pershing, however, you may owe separate brokerage and transaction costs. You may also owe fees outside of what Orgel charges, including mutual fund and ETF costs.
If you’re looking for standalone financial planning services, you can negotiate a fee, perhaps a fixed fee, with the rate based on the complexity of your needs.
Orgel Wealth Management has a clean disciplinary record, disclosing no events over the past 10 years. All registered investment advisors are required to disclose any legal, regulatory or criminal event that is material to how a client evaluates the business or the integrity of the management team in their Form ADV, paperwork filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
For more information, you can go to the firm’s Investment Adviser Public Disclosure (IAPD) page.
Orgel Wealth Management has two offices. They’re located in Altoona, Wis., and Minnetonka, Minn.
If you’re looking for a smaller, more intimate advisory practice where you know exactly how much you’ll pay and how much the firm will earn off of your accounts, Orgel Wealth Management could suit your needs. The firm’s fees are lower than industry averages, and include additional services like retirement and education planning. Although the firm generally requires new clients to invest a minimum of $1 million, it will waive that minimum requirement at its discretion. In fact, many of its current individual clients are not considered high net worth per the SEC’s definition.
The fact that the firm only has two offices, however, limits clients to those who are local to the areas or willing to have a long-distance relationship with their financial advisor. Clients who do not want to custody their funds at Pershing, LLC, should be prepared to pay additional fees as well. As always, be sure to research multiple firms to ensure you find the right advisor for you.
Amanda GenglerAmanda Gengler has been researching and writing about finance for more than 15 years. She honed her personal finance writing as a journalist at Money magazine for a decade.
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