Palisades Hudson Financial Group, Scarsdale, Names Chief Investment Officer, Opens Portland, Ore., Office

SCARSDALE, NY--(Marketwire - Aug 9, 2012) - Palisades Hudson Financial Group LLC has named Paul Jacobs, CFP®, its new chief investment officer, topping a list of personnel additions and promotions as the Scarsdale, N.Y.-based firm prepares to expand to the West Coast this month.

The promotions were announced by Larry M. Elkin, CFP®, CPA, president and founder of the fee-only wealth-management firm.

Jacobs, 32, has spent a decade with Palisades Hudson. In addition to his CIO role, he continues in his current post as manager in charge of the firm's Atlanta office. A native of Queens, N.Y., Jacobs started with Palisades Hudson in Scarsdale in 2002, and later was a manager in the firm's Fort Lauderdale, Fla., office before establishing the Atlanta presence in 2008.

Jacobs has been a member of Palisades Hudson's Investment Committee since 2005 and its chief compliance officer since 2009. He succeeds Jonathan Bergman, who left the firm this month, as CIO. Linda Elkin, Palisades Hudson's director of marketing and human resources, who oversaw Bergman's marketing efforts, will assume direct responsibility for marketing.

Another 10-year Palisades Hudson veteran, David Walters, CFP®, CPA, will establish the firm's West Coast presence with his relocation to metropolitan Portland, Ore., on Aug. 21. Walters, 32, began his career in Scarsdale and has been a client service manager in Fort Lauderdale since 2007.

Anna Pfaehler, CFP®, 26, succeeds Jacobs as the firm's chief compliance officer. She is a client service manager in the Scarsdale office, where she joined Palisades Hudson in 2006.

Ben Sullivan, CFP®, 28, a client service manager based in Scarsdale, will join the firm's Investment Committee, whose five members currently oversee more than $1.1 billion in client assets under management.

"Our approach to managing investments is not going to change," Jacobs said. "We are still going to counsel clients to be clear about their long-term goals and about the amount of short-term volatility they're willing to accept. We will continue to be compensated only by our clients, who have our undivided loyalty, and we'll continue to look for the most efficient and effective ways to implement our clients' investment strategies."

Jacobs noted that he and other senior managers at the firm have gathered a wealth of experience as this part of Palisades Hudson's business grew from around $30 million under management when it began in 1997 to more than $1.1 billion today. This has earned the firm's investment advisory affiliate, Palisades Hudson Asset Management L.P., national rankings among independent money managers for the past two years. Financial Advisor magazine this week ranked Palisades Hudson at 106 nationally among registered investment advisors, based on assets under management in 2011.

"The challenging part is to make the investment component of a client's financial life mesh seamlessly with everything else -- family goals, income taxes, estate planning and retirement needs, among other things," Jacobs said. "The best way to see the whole picture is to have us share our perspectives and reflect them in the work the Investment Committee does. My job as CIO is to make this happen."

Besides Jacobs, Walters and Sullivan, the Investment Committee includes Shomari Hearn, CFP®, 37, who is Palisades Hudson's vice president in charge of technical excellence and staff development and manager of the Fort Lauderdale office, and Eric Meermann, CFP®, 33, the manager in charge of the Scarsdale office.

The firm's new hires include Laurie Samay, a client service associate in the Scarsdale office who worked at Palisades Hudson for three summers while attending Washington University in St. Louis, from which she recently graduated with honors. Anna Hilbert, a financial planning assistant in Fort Lauderdale, is a member of the Florida bar and holds an LL.M. degree in taxation from the University of Florida's Levin College of Law. Ashley Dandridge, a financial planning assistant in Scarsdale, is currently completing her master's degree in media and communications at Pace University.

The firm's founder noted that Palisades Hudson's team and the firm itself have grown up together in the two decades since he launched the business as a one-man shop in Hastings on Hudson, N.Y., just north of New York City.

"I asked them all to do something exceptionally difficult -- to master, at a very high level, the intricacies of planning investments, taxes, estates and all sorts of other matters for the people we serve, who generally have significant assets that bring complex issues," said Elkin, 54.

"All of our people took on that challenge. They have become Certified Financial Planner™ certificants, IRS-enrolled agents and CPAs, as well as investment portfolio managers. They know the families we work for. Our clients are not assets to be managed or estates to be planned or tax returns to be filed. Our clients are people, with needs and concerns and aspirations, and our purpose is to help them define their goals and achieve them."

More information is available at www.palisadeshudson.com.