A Higher Standard of Integrity

As an independent registered investment advisor acting as a fiduciary, Wilco receives no commissions, pushes no annuities or other products, and has no hidden agendas. Our only interest is in helping you and your family to understand your investments, along with the tax code and the financial tools that are available to reduce or eliminate certain taxes, to help you increase assets available for retirement and retirement income, to help you set and achieve financial goals, and to help you faithfully steward the wealth that has been entrusted to you.

As a fiduciary, Wilco Financial is required by law to act in the best interest of its clients, which is not the requirement for all financial advisors. Advisors who sell annuities or other commission-based products are held to a standard of "suitability", meaning they can't legally sell a product that is unsuitable, but there is no legal requirement to act in a client's best interests, and the commissions earned by selling these products are generally several times larger than Wilco's annual management fee of 0.85% of AUM per year.

A Higher Standard of Expertise

After starting out in public accounting and commercial real estate investment, Jon Gillett received an MBA in Finance from Vanderbilt University (‘99) and went on to manage investments for several entities, including a distressed, deep-value focused hedge fund, a global long/short equity hedge fund, a registered investment advisor, and a separate accounts management firm (managing assets for financial advisors throughout the US). At present, he manages Wilco Financial, along with a real estate investment firm based in Houston, TX (Gillett Properties, Ltd.).

About Me

Hi, I'm Jon Gillett, founder of Wilco Financial. I have 30 years of investment experience working with individuals and large institutions alike, and would love to talk to you about how to set up a custom-tailored investment portfolio and financial plan, built to achieve your goals, with your personal preferences and risk tolerance in mind.

5 Key Differences Between RIAs and Broker-Dealers

	Investment Advisor (RIA)	Broker-Dealer
Standard	Fiduciary Standard: Legally required to act in the clients' best interests	Suitability Standard: Brokers may not sell a product that is determined to be unsuitable
Primary Function	Ongoing comprehensive planning, advice and long-term wealth management	Selling annuities or other products and following up at the end of any lock-up period
Range of Services	Holistic, long-term support including financial planning, asset management, etc.	Usually transactional in nature and focused on buying and/or selling securities
Compensation	Usually a percentage of assets under management (1% to 2% per year)	Often commission-based, with commissions as high as 8% in some cases
Goals	As client wealth increases, the advisor's practice grows along with it	Advisor income is increased dramatically by selling high-commission products

Simple, Transparent Fee Structure

Wilco charges a low, simple fee of 0.85% per year of managed assets. This straightforward approach helps ensure our interests are aligned and that your portfolio's growth is not held back by excessive, hidden fees.

Investment and financial consulting are billed on a case by case basis, with short meetings and easy questions generally free and no charges ever unless they have been discussed with you, agreed to in advance, and you are happy with the final product. If you're not happy, we have not earned our fee and there will be no payment due. Normally, we are able to add material value that is significantly in excess of our fee.

What is a Fiduciary?

As a fiduciary, Wilco Financial is legally required to act in the best interests of our clients at all times. We don’t accept commissions (a single commission would be the equivalent of several years’ worth of our fees) and therefore our recommendations are driven solely by the desire to optimize the investment performance and financial position of our clients.

At Wilco, client trust and goodwill are of paramount importance and will always be prioritized above shorter-term considerations. If we have nothing to add to your analysis and/or can't make a positive contribution to your expected risk-adjusted returns, we would have no expectation that we have earned an ongoing relationship or payment. In the majority of cases, however, we believe we will be able to add material value, either in the form of improved investment selection, loss avoidance (2nd opinions are usually a good idea for this reason alone!), or reduced projected lifetime taxes and improved projected after-tax assets available at retirement from effective tax and retirement planning.