Compliance

March 22, 2022

Introduction

Linwood Investment Advisors, Inc. is an investment advisor registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We feel that it is important for you to understand how advisory and brokerage services and fees differ in order to determine which type of account is right for you. There are tools available to research firms and financial professionals at www.investor.gov/CRS which also provide educational materials about investment advisors and investing.

What investment services and advice can you provide me?

We offer investment advisory services to retail investors, including fee-based investment advice. Our clients grant us discretionary or non-discretionary authority to invest their assets. We manage your account based on your specific investment objectives and on a client-by-client basis. The types of accounts we manage include but are not limited to: taxable accounts, tax-advantaged accounts, tax-deferred accounts, qualified accounts and non-qualified accounts.

We begin our engagement with you by reviewing your financial situation. We do not have investment minimums to establish client relationships. We invest our client’s assets in mutual funds, exchange-traded funds, individual stocks and/or bonds. Our financial professionals, referred to as advisors, manage and monitor your accounts. We monitor the investments we utilize in your account on a weekly basis. Your investment assets are not in our custody. The majority of our clients’ assets are managed through institutional relationships with custodians such as Fidelity, Charles Schwab, and TD Ameritrade.

Additional information about our advisory services can be found in Item 4 of our Form ADV Part 2A Brochure, which is available online at www.advisorinfo.sec.gov.   

Conversation Starters. Ask your financial professional:

·         Given my financial situation, should I choose an investment advisory service? Why or why not?

·         How will you choose investments to recommend to me?

·         What is your relevant experience, including your licenses, education and other qualifications? What do these qualifications mean

What fees will I pay?

You will be charged an ongoing quarterly fee based on the value of the investments in your account. Our investment management fee ranges from 0% to 1.25% annually depending on the value of the investments in your account. In some instances we may charge qualified plans a flat fee. Our firm’s fees will be automatically deducted from your advisory account, which will reduce the value of your advisory account. Our investment advisory fees do not vary based on the type of investments we select on your behalf. The more assets you have in your advisory account, the more you will pay us. We therefore have an incentive to increase the assets in your advisory account in order to increase our fees.

You will pay fees and costs whether you make or lose money on your investments. Fees and costs will reduce any amount of money you make on your investments over time. Please make sure you understand what fees and costs you are paying.

Your custodian may charge transaction-based fees when we buy or sell and investment for you that has an applicable transaction cost. These fees are in addition to our firm’s management fee.

Additional information about our advisory fees can be found in Item 5 of our Form ADV Part 2A Brochure, which is available online at www.advisorinfo.sec.gov. 

Conversation Starters. Ask your financial professional:

·         Help me understand how these fees and costs might affect my investments. If I give you $10,000 to invest, how much will go to fees and costs, and how much will be invested for me?”
 

What are your legal obligations to me when acting as my investment adviser? How else does your firm make money and what conflicts of interest do you have?

When we act as your investment adviser, we have to act in your best interest and not put our interest ahead of yours. At the same time, the way we make money creates some conflicts with your interests. You should understand and ask us about these conflicts because they can affect the investment advice we provide you. Here are some examples to help you understand what this means.

As a fee-only adviser, a conflict of interest may exist any time we recommend that you keep your assets under our management rather than remove your assets from our management. Examples could include recommending that you rollover an account into an account managed by our firm, or recommending that your assets remain in your account rather than satisfying a debt obligation.

Additional information about our conflicts of interest can be found in Item 10 of our Form ADV Part 2A Brochure, which is available online at www.advisorinfo.sec.gov. 
 
Conversation Starters. Ask your financial professional:

·         How might your conflicts of interest affect me, and how will you address them?”

How do your financial professionals make money?

Our financial professionals are paid a salary and additional compensation based on the revenue our firm earns from advisory services. Our firm does not receive any compensation from anyone besides our clients.

Do you or your financial professionals have legal or disciplinary history?

Neither our firm, nor any of our financial professionals, have any legal or disciplinary history. You may also visit Investor.gov/CRS for a free and simple search tool to research our firm and our financial professionals.
 
Conversation Starters. Ask your financial professional:

·         As a financial professional, do you have any disciplinary history? For what type of conduct?

Additional Information

You can find additional information about our firm’s investment advisory services on the SEC’s website at www.adviserinfo.sec.gov by searching CRD #120289. You can also visit our website at https://www.linwoodinvestment.com/ or contact our firm at (716) 572-4790 to request a copy of this relationship summary and other up-to-date information.
 
Conversation Starters. Ask your financial professional:

·         Who is my primary contact person? Is he or she a representative of an investment adviser or a broker-dealer? Who can I talk to if I have concerns about how this person is treating me?
 
 For investment advisers that accept discretionary authority, describe those services and any material limitations on that authority. Any such summary must include the specific circumstances that would trigger this authority and any material limitations on that authority (e.g., length of time). For investment advisers that offer non-discretionary services and broker-dealers, explain that the retail investor makes the ultimate decision regarding the purchase or sale of investments.

This rating is not indicative of future performance and Linwood did not pay for this endorsement. Linwood received this rating in 2015. The CNBC Digital editorial team, along with Meridian-IQ, created the following ranking methodology for its Top 100 Fee-Only Wealth Management Firms rankings. Scores for each measure listed below were weighted according to a proprietary formula to arrive at a final total rank:

• Assets under management.
• Having staff with professional designations such as a CFP or CFA.
• Working with third-party professionals such as attorneys or CPAs.
• Average account size.
• Growth of assets.
• Years in business.
• Number of advisory clients.
• Providing advice on insurance solutions.

Firms with greater AUM totals were given a higher ranking in the case of numerical ties of the above formula. The Meridian/AdviceIQ team then applied the formula to the Meridian-IQ database of all RIAs to create the list. The final step to create the Top 100 Fee-Only Wealth Management Firms list for CNBC.com was to apply the AdviceIQ Regulatory Compliance Review process to the master list and eliminate any firm that failed the RCR process. 

The RCR process is a due-diligence process whereby each advisory firm was compared to the RCR database of all regulatory actions from all four primary regulators: SEC, FINRA, state regulators and state insurance commissioners. In order to pass the RCR process, an advisory firm cannot have any complaints, actions or disclosures from any of the above regulators.