The Barnett, Coon, Armitage, Leach & Moore Group

Private Wealth Advisors
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Significant wealth requires customized strategies tailored to your unique goals and priorities. We serve a limited number of individuals and families, allowing us to offer personalized, boutique-like services to help you simplify your life and pursue what’s important to you.

Meet the Team

The private wealth advisors with Merrill Private Wealth Management are rigorously trained to help meet your specialized needs with relationships based on trust and personalized service.

Additional Resources

The following specialists do not make securities recommendations. Please contact your Merrill Private Wealth Advisor if you have questions about how a specialist might be able to assist you.

Kimberly P Auerbach

Senior Wealth Management Lending Officer

Bank of America, N.A.

NMLS #637449

Jean Y. Kim

Private Wealth Strategist

Merrill

Michael Powers

Wealth Strategies Advisor

Bank of America, N.A.

Strategies designed to help you achieve your goals

As a client of Merrill Private Wealth Management, you have access to services and resources ordinarily reserved for the world’s largest institutions. We work with individuals, families spanning multiple generations, business owners and executives. Using a goals-based wealth management approach, we put our clients at the center of every personalized strategy.

Our Approach

Our Philosophy

We believe your unique goals should be at the center of all of your financial decisions and form the foundation of your financial strategy. Because significant wealth requires customized goals-based financial strategies, we believe in building lasting relationships with a limited number of clients, taking the time to understand your most important priorities for today, tomorrow and your long-term future. Our philosophy celebrates collaboration. Working with a team of specialists, we draw on the resources and insights of a global financial institution to create strategies that reflect your aspirations for yourself and current and future generations of your family. Finally, we believe that while significant wealth brings complex challenges, our experience, passion and perspectives can help you simplify your life.

Corporate Executives

We understand the complexities that come with your executive position and the extreme demands on your time. We can help you develop a customized strategy that your finances and compensation require. We can help with risk management strategies for your concentrated stock position while navigating complex SEC rules, trading restrictions and reporting requirements. If you’ve just been promoted and would like help evaluating your new compensation plan, or if you’re looking to develop a long-term financial strategy for you and your family — designed to enable you to live life as you want it, with reliable access to cash — we can help simplify your financial life, as well as develop new strategies as your career and goals evolve.

Technology Entrepreneur

As a technology entrepreneur, you focus relentlessly on what’s next. Yet as you look ahead to each new venture or cutting-edge innovation, it’s important to maintain the financial foundation that helps power your success and helps you take advantage of potential opportunities as they arise. We have experience helping entrepreneurs and business owners balance their personal lives with their life’s work. We understand the challenges you face every day, whether managing your newly achieved success or gaining access to the liquidity you need as seed capital or for personal expenses. We are dedicated in providing the experience and resources to help support your ongoing success.

Company Founders, Private Business Owners & Entrepreneurs

When you have built your own business, your personal finances and the life of your company are closely intertwined. You may be thinking about how to invest in your company’s growth while also deciding how best to use your personal assets. Helping ensure the future of your business likely involves employee benefits, retirement plans and succession planning. Helping secure your family’s legacy could entail wealth transfer strategies, trusts and philanthropy. Whatever your specific needs, we at Merrill Private Wealth Management can help entrepreneurs and business owners balance their personal financial lives with their life’s work. We are dedicated in providing the experience and resources to help support your ongoing success.

Foundations and Endowments

An investment portfolio tailored to your needs is crucial to advancing your organization’s mission and carrying on its important work. We have extensive experience working with endowments and foundations and have a keen understanding of the requirements and responsibilities of board and committee members for investment management and financial oversight. The strategies we construct are carefully designed to help promote stability, efficiency and growth under a variety of market conditions. We also offer advice on board governance and reporting, and help in meeting regulatory and operating challenges. We provide access to the customized services your organization needs with discretion and skill.

Nonprofit organizations

Your passion drives your organization’s mission, and you depend on an investment portfolio and an effective staff to carry on its important work. As private wealth advisors with Merrill Private Wealth Management, we have experience working with nonprofit organizations. We possess a keen understanding of the challenges you face, including maintaining operational efficiency and productivity through uneven market circumstances, growing competition for donations, and increased fiduciary requirements. Drawing on our extensive capabilities to help you fulfill your organization’s mission, we can provide access to the customized services your organization needs with discretion and skill, such as strategic planning, portfolio management, administrative and board support, and advisory solutions.

Intergenerational Family Wealth

As a family that spans multiple generations, you have needs that go beyond preserving assets, tax minimization strategies and designating heirs. Your goals also likely include passing on values and helping the rising generation become effective stewards. We can help with personalized wealth transfer strategies, family wealth education and developing and implementing philanthropic visions. In working with you to create an approach that reflects your family’s intentions and helps ensure your assets are distributed according to your wishes, we proceed in a manner that recognizes the complexities of your life challenges and the unique nature of your goals. Our extensive experience working with other families of significant wealth helps  us to see and share best practices to help you achieve them.

Family Offices

As private wealth advisors with Merrill Private Wealth Management, we work with prominent families to help them manage the ongoing complexities they face. Our deep experience with family offices enables us to tailor a range of services to help meet your specific needs. We can provide access to Merrill for investment and wealth management strategies, and to Bank of America for governance, asset custody and administration, as well as assisting in the financial education of younger family members. In working with you to create and implement plans reflecting your specific intentions, our goal is to help your family enterprise succeed, and that your knowledge and values are passed along to the next generation. Together, we will focus on strategies that recognize the unique nature of your family’s mission, history and goals.

About Us

Founded in 1997, the Barnett, Coon, Armitage, Leach & Moore Group provides sophisticated wealth management strategies and unwavering service to corporate executives and ultra-high net worth individuals and families. Headquartered in Southern California with offices in Newport Beach, La Jolla, Tampa, FL, and Red Bank, NJ, we are a team of nine professionals overseeing more than $3.1 billion in assets, as of August 2023.

In addition, we work with corporations by offering best in class business solutions based upon the company’s time horizon, risk tolerance, liquidity needs and overall goals, utilizing the full resources of our enterprise to deliver true value.

Mission Statement: We help families preserve, enjoy and steward their wealth across multiple generations through a goals-based wealth management approach. We make it our priority to serve our clients exceptionally well, and to streamline their financial lives, allowing them to focus more fully on their family, business, and philanthropic pursuits.

Our Approach

Clients engage our team because of our knowledge, experience, and deeply ingrained service ethic. We combine our strength in these three areas to devise tailored responses to the challenges of significant wealth. We foster a boutique atmosphere, responding to clients through a one-on-one sensibility that focuses squarely on their needs. At the same time, we leverage the global resources of Merrill and the banking capabilities of Bank of America to generate effective frameworks that demonstrate the competencies that clients require. As advisors, we serve clients with a care and humility that testify to our deep-seated interest in their wellbeing. Also, with the support of Merrill’s Center for Family Wealth Dynamics & Governance Group, we seek to facilitate the smooth intergenerational transfer of wealth and values. We wish to empower our clients to define the purpose of their wealth and to be intentional about the impact it has on their families and communities.

Our Process

Our wealth management process is grounded in a holistic approach to each client. We provide advice and guidance, not only on their assets, liabilities, and business interests, but also their family dynamics and concerns. Our role is to work thoughtfully with each client, helping define and pursue the outcomes they most desire.

Our process is dynamic and iterative. We continually think about ways to enhance clients’ financial lives. We reevaluate client needs based on changing market conditions and life priorities, and we recognize that wealth is not static. Just as clients evolve and change, so too their wealth tactics and strategies must be nimble and responsive.

Our Strengths

We have purposefully built our team to align with the requirements of significant wealth. We serve clients with similar needs and are prepared to focus on what matters most to them with customized strategies. Our team members bring in-depth knowledge in multiple disciplines, creating a synergy of effort and understanding in diverse areas:

Goals-Based Wealth Management
Restricted & Stock Option Strategies
Cash Flow Budgeting & Planning
Family Wealth Planning
Investment Management
Tax Minimization Strategies*
Trust and Estate Planning Services
Credit & Lending through Bank of America
Personal Banking through Bank of America
Philanthropy
 

* Merrill, its affiliates, and financial advisors do not provide legal, tax, or accounting advice. You should consult your legal and/or tax advisors before making any financial decisions.

*Trust, fiduciary, and investment management services are provided by Bank of America, N.A., Member FDIC, and wholly owned subsidiary of Bank of America Corporation (“BofA Corp.”), and its agents.

A Commitment to Service

Merrill Private Wealth Management is committed to providing a select group of clients with highly personalized one-on-one service. When you work with us, our knowledgeable, rigorously trained private wealth advisors will gain a deep understanding of your goals, help you develop a multigenerational wealth strategy, and help you update your strategy as needed. We are committed to providing you access to the investment insights of Merrill and the banking convenience of Bank of America, and Merrill will continue to invest in client tools and new technology to enhance your overall experience as you and your private wealth advisor pursue what’s most important to you.

The Clients We Serve

Individual and Families: We are privileged to serve a highly successful clientele consisting of approximately 70 families. We offer practical guidance and hands-on assistance before, during and after liquidity events. We also structure personal wealth strategies and tactics that reflect a client’s unique circumstances and goals. Working in concert with each client and his or her tax and legal advisors, we are architects of long-term legacies that balance short-term needs.

Corporations: We also work closely with corporations, designing and implementing integrated benefit services that advance corporate objectives while reflecting participant interests. Our competitive intelligence into market trends bolsters our effectiveness in providing differentiated insight, with access to institutional equity award plan administration, including executive services and Rule 10b5-1 plans for public company officers and directors. We also provide advice and guidance to entrepreneurs and executives of both publicly traded and privately held companies, helping them grow and preserve their personal wealth.

Let's have a conversation

Your dedicated Merrill Private Wealth Management team is ready to help you pursue what’s most important to you.

Our Vision

For clients of substantial means, Merrill Private Wealth Management provides an experience that is both powerful and personal. We are dedicated to helping you pursue your goals for today while developing an approach designed to support your family members for the years to come.

Your private wealth advisor and team of specialists work with a limited number of clients, enabling them to focus their time, training and passion on helping you simplify your personal and business finances and prepare your next generation.

Boutique-like service with the access to the investment resources of Merrill and banking convenience of Bank of America

We combine the personalized attention and feel of a smaller firm with the power and insights of a global financial institution, creating financial strategies tailored to your unique situation.

A relentless commitment to transparency and customized strategies

As our client, know we are working in your best interests, providing goals-based financial strategies designed to anticipate and help meet your evolving financial needs.