Different Commission Structure

Our Compensation Structure

OakBridge’s Investment Advisors work primarily on a fee-based structure. We conscientiously have chosen this method of compensation because we feel that it offers our clients five considerable benefits.

1.    Emphasis is on your needs rather than on a transaction or a “sale.”
2.    Your success greatly impacts our own firm’s profitability.
3.    Long-term relationships become a primary focal point.
4.    Conflicts of interest are substantially reduced.
5.    Offers a great variety of both services and products.

You will find that in the financial services industry an advisor’s compensation structure can tell you a lot about the advisor’s potential biases and conflicts of interest. As a quick example, a primarily commission-based structure frequently indicates that a very high percentage of the advisor’s total compensation will come up front at the time of the transaction. Now in and of itself this is neither good nor bad but there are some significant and inherent hurdles that have to be overcome.

As a quick example to illustrate the point sometimes the differences of commission on various investments can be quite wide, sometimes as much as 1% to 2%. Now at first glance 2% doesn’t seem to be that large of a number but on $100,000 investment you are talking about a commission difference of $2,000 or more.  The difference of $2,000 is not an insignificant amount and the advisor would need to be careful not to choose one product over another just to receive a higher commission; especially if the lower commission product may be more suitable to your needs.

The second hurdle is that of ongoing service. If your advisor receives the majority of his/her compensation at the time of a “sale,” the incentive to regularly watch over your account is greatly impaired. The reality is that in order to generate additional income, one of three things has to happen.

  1. The client continually brings in additional assets to be invested
  2. The advisor frequently trades your account into “newer and better” products
  3. The advisor is constantly searching for new clients to fill the needed revenue pipeline


And lastly there is the issue of sale-side expenses. Economies change, circumstances change, and investment needs change. Being locked into an investment that no longer meets your needs is not only painful but also counterproductive.

Utilizing primarily a fee-based approach avoids many of these hurdles. First, our asset management fee starts at a 1% annual fee and can go down based upon the total value of your investments. If your assets grow, our firm succeeds; if your assets shrink, so also do our revenues. This fee is then divided by four, charged quarterly and deducted directly from your investment portfolio. And significantly, if by chance at any time you become unsatisfied with our asset management services, you can leave at any time without any additional management fees.  There are no contracts or long-term obligations. It definitely is in our best interest to make sure you are well taken care of and are satisfied.