Mark Buffington's Story
In 1997 — in the peak of the dot.com frenzy — I unpacked two suitcases with all my belongings in my rundown, newly rented apartment in San Francisco. Like many young pioneers and entrepreneurs before me, I went West to seek my fortune. After a few years, I got married and my wife supported us while I launched a new equity options trading fund. After a number of sleepless nights and more than a few tough business lessons, in 2002, our bet paid off and my wife and I made our first fortune.
For two people who had grown up as middle-classers, the realization that we had achieved our financial dreams was exhilarating, validating and somewhat surreal. Like many people who are fortunate enough to build wealth, we sought out all the usual suspects to help us manage our money. And for me, that is where the origin of BIP Wealth began.
Admittedly, I am a tough client for wire house brokerages to make happy. My early experiences in the financial industry gave me a real window into how ultra affluent individuals invest. Ultra affluent individuals invest in real assets, private businesses, private debt, and direct real estate. They combine alternative strategies with low-cost public market strategies that are supported by financial science. They augment their investment strategies with tax and estate planning strategies that increase their after-tax investment returns and allow for efficient generational wealth transfer. And I wanted access to an advisor who could give me the same thing. But wire houses and most advisory firms don’t offer such a robust value proposition to investors with $1-10 million to invest. What they essentially offered me was an opportunity to pay them high fees, invest in some publicly traded stocks and bonds, with limited access to alternative investments, and a customary phone call once a year.
So I asked a simple question… where could I find a firm that would give me – an affluent investor – access to the same investment strategies as the ultra-affluent? The answer was that it did not exist.
In 2005, we had our daughter and decided that moving back to Atlanta was the best thing for our family. I launched Peachtree Financial Management to bring ultra-affluent investment strategies to the mass affluent market. I quickly learned that many other affluent investors felt the same way I did – that the traditional brokerage model is a lot like modern day air travel. Peachtree Financial grew rapidly… so much that I needed help managing client relationships. Enter Bill Harris.
I had known Bill for over 15 years as we had played baseball together at Georgia Tech. In the Winter of 2007, Bill and I reconnected for lunch and sketched out on a napkin what is largely our business model today.
Our business was formed in April of 2007 and today we are growing at a pace that surprises even us. Our clients enjoy a holistic investment management value proposition that we believe is unrivaled. And they gain access to products that they could not find anywhere else: like current income, senior secured notes and opportunities to invest in some of the Southeast’s fastest growing private companies.
