It’s New to Us by Jean Stratton

HIGH-END HELP: “Today, clients want to protect what they have and also grow conservatively. I like being able to help people achieve their goal during these hard financial times. Our focus is to protect your assets.” Tyler Vernon is founder and chief investment officer of Biltmore Capital Advisors, headquartered in Princeton.

Customized Financial Management Solutions Available From Biltmore Capital Advisors

“We’re good at explaining sophisticated information to people and helping to educate them.”

That is especially helpful when the information is in the world of high finance!

Tyler Vernon, founder and chief investment officer of Biltmore Capital Advisors, is certainly an expert in his field, and he enjoys sharing the knowledge with clients.

Formerly a vice president with Merrill Lynch in New York, Mr. Vernon was involved in overseeing more than one billion dollars in client assets. After 10 years on Wall Street, however, he decided to head in a different direction — literally and figuratively. He and his wife moved to Princeton, and he founded Biltmore Capital Advisors, now located at 33 Witherspoon Street. There is also an office in Atlanta.

Described as a boutique asset management firm, specializing in high-end family office services, Biltmore Capital has wealthy clients nationwide. Mr. Vernon wanted to offer a wide spectrum of services to his clients, and he believed a smaller company offered the initiative and ingenuity, as well as flexibility, to provide such services.

“In any big company, there can be a lot of red tape if you want to introduce a new idea,” he explains. “Sometimes, too, there can be a conflict of interest — is your loyalty to your clients or to your firm?”

Customized Portfolio

In addition, Mr. Vernon wanted to be able to focus on his own family — his wife and two daughters. Life in a high-pressure Wall Street job does not always afford as much time at home as he wanted. Also, having been in New York on September 11 during the attack on the World Trade Center, he found that priorities can change.

Biltmore Capital is uniquely situated to provide a customized investment portfolio, attention to liabilities and risk management, and a selection of personal financial concierge services designed to make clients’ lives easier.

“Our clients are typically 55 to 70,” says Mr. Vernon. “We determine what they are trying to achieve, and we try to get the clients in a lot of different financial strategies. We can also focus on non-stock market investment, such as currencies, commodities, or metals. Investors are looking for these options.”

The team at Biltmore Capital consists of personal relationship managers and an investment committee. The former provides clients with a comprehensive family asset management plan, reflecting the clients’ goals, specific needs, available resources, and requirements.

The investment committee continually searches for both traditional and non-traditional investments in which performance is less dependent on the over-all stock market. Changes can be recommended as new trends, strategies, and opportunities are identified.

Mr. Vernon is proud of the fact that Biltmore Capital identified the financial crisis in 2008, and “we got most of our clients out of the stock market. We have also been on the cutting edge of new strategies, and putting together new products and investment strategies for people.”

Concierge Program

Among its variety of services, Biltmore Capital offers a concierge program. This is an optional service which can take care of numerous time-consuming activities, such as recommending restaurants and making reservations, arranging for car service or rentals, making airline and hotel reservations, ordering event tickets, researching travel plans, shopping, sending flowers, walking the dog, etc.

As Mr. Vernon notes, “Maybe you’re going to your Nantucket vacation home and you need someone to open the house, fill the refrigerator, etc. How can we make our clients lives easier? Our clients love this!”

Another valuable service is Biltmore Capital’s online Private Vault and storage system.

“What if your house burned down and all your important documents were lost?” points out Mr. Vernon. “We make an on-line booklet or storage system of all your important documents: wills, trusts, insurance policies, passports, bank accounts, mortgages, etc.”

The on-line vault can also store digital pictures of valuables, letters to heirs, etc. In addition, notes Mr. Vernon, “A lot of our clients may have 10 to 15 different passwords for different accounts, which can be confusing. We can consolidate them in the private vault, bringing all the information to one place.”

Biltmore Capital’s Personal Lending service is still another way it can help clients, explains Mr. Vernon. “Our clients can borrow against their stock portfolio at the very low current interest — one percent. We can arrange this for them.”

Media Coverage

Helping clients with such a range of services is what Mr. Vernon has hoped to achieve. He is happy that his firm has been given wide press and media coverage, from the Wall Street Journal to CNBC and Fox News, among others. He has also been interviewed on CNBC and Fox News, as well as serving as guest host.

“This media coverage has provided credibility and acknowledgment for us, and has helped build the business locally and in the tri-state area. We want to get the word out that there is a different way of investing and achieving goals. We want to do it right and take care of clients’ financial security and peace of mind.”

The majority of Biltmore Capital’s clients are outside of Princeton, he reports, and he wants to grow locally. “We have reduced the minimum investment portfolio size for people in Princeton and in the area. Our goal is to be a household word!”

On a personal level, he is very happy that his work in Princeton gives him more time to spend with his family. “My family is very important to me. I can drop my girls off at school in the morning and then be home for dinner in the evening. I want to be there for my kids’ events. This has been even better than I hoped!”

For more information, call (609) 588-8701 or (888) 391-4563. Website: bilt morecap.com.

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