A Focus on What’s Meaningful to You
Established in 1997, The Hunt-Bass Group is dedicated to helping address the complex wealth management needs of ultra-affluent individuals and families. This select clientele has entrusted the group with approximately $2.6 billion in client balances as of November 30, 2022. The team limits the number of relationships it serves so it can spend the necessary time and energy to provide each with personalized, concierge-like service and customized advice and guidance.
The Hunt-Bass Group understands that managing substantial wealth requires sophisticated, individualized strategies. Drawing on the investment insights of Merrill and access to the banking convenience of Bank of America, the team follows a detailed, multidisciplinary approach that is shaped by the members’ extensive background in financial services and investing. Supported by two highly skilled analysts and one dedicated private wealth associate, Private Wealth Advisors Scott Bass and Roger Hunt work to help serve clients’ diverse needs through a process they describe in terms of heart, head and body:
- Wealth management is the heart, concerned with clients’ passions, aspirations and vision.
- Investing is the head, an intellectual effort to help generate returns in ever more complex markets.
- Our services form the body, providing capabilities required for everyday life.
By addressing the whole client, the team seeks to build and maintain long-term relationships founded on an unwavering commitment to the highest level of integrity and professionalism.
"Clients' most valuable commodity is time. We want to be the first call when anything changes in a client’s financial life. With our help, we hope they can maximize their time in other areas that matter most to them."Roger Hunt, CFA®Managing DirectorPrivate Wealth Advisor
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.
Broad Capabilities for Diverse Needs
Our value to you extends beyond investment management to the highly customized services and strategies we offer. Drawing on our team members' individual strengths and collective experience, together with the expansive resources of a global firm, we are well positioned to help with a wide range of situations.
Services for Entrepreneurs and ExecutivesWhether you’re in the initial stages of creating a business, in the process of growing an existing one or own a mature enterprise that you wish to sell or pass on to the next generation, we offer an array of services to help.
- Access to financing: We can provide access to Bank of America to help you raise capital to start up and develop your business through security-backed lending, intrafamily loans, custom mortgages and commercial real estate lending.
- Wealth strategies: We can assist in integrating your business and personal finances and develop strategies designed to help grow and preserve your assets and generate income.
- Succession services: We can help you identify the right exit strategy, whether you want to sell your business, take it public or transfer it to the next generation.
- Access to banking services: We can provide access to Bank of America to help with services like checking and credit cards.
Concentrated Stock StrategiesMany of the clients we serve have sold their companies for stock, which then accounts for a large percentage of their total wealth. A similar situation can confront executives whose compensation includes grants of options or shares in their company. We can work in concert with your tax and legal advisors to develop diversification strategies designed to help manage the risk inherent in concentrated positions while potentially enhancing your portfolio’s liquidity. These may include such elements as 10b5-1 sales plans, charitable giving and hedging strategies.
Legacy Planning ServicesWorking with the Bank of America Private Bank's Institutional Investments & Philanthropic Solutions Group, we can assist you in creating a legacy of lasting impact. We take particular care in helping you select a vehicle for your philanthropic activity—such as a charitable trust, a donor-advised fund or private family foundation—with the potential to maximize both the benefit to the causes and communities you wish to support and your personal fulfillment.
Multigenerational RelationshipsOur team seeks to foster long-term relationships that extend to a client’s entire family and span generations. We believe that such relationships facilitate legacy planning and continuity of financial guidance. And for the younger family members, we conduct educational events tailored to children and grandchildren, including financial boot camps.
"Entrepreneurs are extremely busy people with complex problems. We have the ability to think outside the box to help them create custom strategies for their unique needs so they can focus on what they want to be doing with their time, whether it’s working 24 hours a day on their business or enjoying a hobby like skiing or traveling."Scott Bass, CIMA®Managing Director
Private Wealth AdvisorSenior Portfolio Manager
Defining the True Purpose of Your Wealth
We believe that wealth should be managed to pursue outcomes that are personally meaningful to you. Realizing that every client’s aspirations are unique, we follow a highly individualized approach that has been honed over years of experience. Using in-depth investment personality assessments, we seek to understand your investment mind-set, attitude toward risk and investment purpose. This guides us as we develop a custom strategy and help you make suitable financial decisions.
Allocating RiskTo position your portfolios to target your specific goals, we bring together all your assets and liabilities, including market investments, home financing, alternative investments, stock options and earning potential. We then help you sort them into three risk categories, each with a different objective:
- Personal risk seeks to prevent a decline in your standard of living.
- Market risk seeks to maintain your current living standard.
- Aspirational risk seeks to enhance your lifestyle.
Extensive Portfolio ReviewsWe communicate regularly with you to keep you informed about what’s happening with your portfolios and the market. Our goal is to remain apprised of changes in your life that may require adjustments to your strategies. We conduct reviews in person and schedule them at your preferred interval—weekly, monthly or quarterly.
"We try to get clients to look down the road 5 to 10 years and ask what obstacles they foresee in pursuing their goals. This can bring to the surface some of the issues and problems we can help with."Roger Hunt, CFA®Managing DirectorPrivate Wealth AdvisorSenior Portfolio Manager
*Some or all alternative investments may not be in the best interests for certain investors. Certain alternative investments carry significant risk and are not subject to the same regulatory oversight as mutual funds and other traditional investments. For these reasons, access to alternative investments may be limited to investors who are designated as sophisticated, high-net-worth investors.
*Banking products and services provided by Bank of America, N.A.
Our "Total Team Approach" to Client Service
We strive to provide a level of service that is unparalleled and deliver the full global resources of one of the world’s most preeminent financial institutions. We consistently explore how we can do things better and make you feel fully engaged in our process.
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