Team Name: Gardens Wealth Management
Firm: Wells Fargo Advisors
Senior Members: Michael J. Cowan, Russell Mahan, David Schnall, Adam Moldof, Scott Wilson
Location: Palm Beach Gardens, FL
Team Custodied Assets: $3.1 billion
Background: The son of two Cuban immigrants, Michael Cowan grew up in South Florida and originally planned to become a priest. Shortly after he decided not to attend seminary, a member of his church congregation persuaded him to consider becoming a stock broker: “I realized the impact—though not faith based, but still significant—that you could have on people.” He started as a solo advisor 25 years ago, but in 2009 formed Gardens Wealth Management. Russell Mahan, meanwhile, grew up in North Carolina and originally planned on becoming a lawyer. In 2006, he took a job at Wells Fargo as a retirement consultant, working closely with financial advisors to create retirement plans for their clients. He teamed up with Cowan in late 2020; Today the team has over 50 employees—including 35 advisors—with offices across four different states. The large majority of their clients are retirees or nearing retirement.
Client Relationships: The team is big on communication and collaboration—particularly around education—with the primary office boasting a 40-seat classroom. From December to April, the team hosts several events here per week which are open to the entire community—not just clients, covering topics from the power of rising dividends to more difficult conversations around end of life planning.
Investment Philosophy/Strategy: “We try to focus on the known rather than the unknown—from a cash flow standpoint, we know our clients are going to need to spend some money,” says Cowan. “Our families have a significant portion of investments in very boring rising dividend companies—they love it because they know what they own,” he adds. “We firmly believe that companies that grow their dividends are the best defense against inflation.” Knowing day-to-day needs are being met gives clients confidence and allows them to stay the course, he argues. “We don’t like to take a lot of risk with the fixed income piece of the portfolio… We’ve always taken the stance that in order for it to be a truly safe asset it has to be short duration, whether that’s money markets or short-term Treasuries.” The team uses alternative investments in client portfolios more sparingly than their peers.
Investment Outlook: “I have no idea what markets will do and I’m not going to make an investment decision for clients based on something I don’t have a crystal ball on,” says Cowan. “So in our view, the only way we can keep a retiree paying their bills is by collecting enough in dividends and income.” Going into 2025, he predicts that markets will not perform as well as they have in the last decade, with more muted—but also historically normal—stock market returns looking likely going forward. “We could go through a cycle where underlying returns are just not as good,” he says. “From our perspective, inflation is not going away—that’s just how things are now.”
Best Advice: “The reality for today’s retirees is that they are living a lot longer than they anticipated—not just longer but also living well, longer—so they need to develop an income plan and work with a team that is going to monitor their cash flow and solve for their needs,” says Cowan. “You can’t just assume that pot of money is always going to be there: You need to have a plan in place to recreate that paycheck.”
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