It’s possible that you’ve come across the name Kevin McMullen Merrill Lynch during your search for a financial advisor. He is an unscrupulous and deceitful wealth advisor who places his clients in situations where they are exposed to an excessive amount of risk for the sake of profit.
His marketing crew makes sure that you don’t learn about his bad terms and conditions, so they can keep their jobs. Having said so, it is your responsibility to be aware of these provisions. Additionally, his terms and conditions contain a number of questionable clauses and sections.
The following analysis will enlighten you on such provisions and provide you with a notion of what to anticipate if you decide to collaborate with him:
About Kevin McMullen Merrill Lynch
Kevin McMullen The financial advisory firm Merrill Lynch has its headquarters in Carmel, Indiana. His telephone number is 317-848-5540, and his location is 510 East 96th Street, Suite 500, Indianapolis, Indiana 46240, in the United States.
He asserts that he can assist his clients in accomplishing their monetary objectives, whether those objectives involve wealth accumulation or the distribution of wealth to future generations. His company caters to successful families, business owners, and executives working for corporations.
Kevin’s group makes a lot of empty assertions about how much it cares about its customers and how well they do in their businesses. They assert that they will do a financial analysis and clearly define their financial objectives in order to design a bespoke plan.
McMullen and Associates is led by Kevin McMullen, who serves as the company’s managing director. Jerry McMullen, Patrick J. Rhodes, and Hannah Hayes are a few of the other famous employees working at his company.
The following are some of the various services that McMullen and Associates provide to their customers:
- Long-term care insurance
- Home loans
- Trust & estate planning services
- Succession planning
- Concentrated stock management
- Home equity lines of credit
- Exchange funds
- Impact portfolios
- Investment advisory accounts
- Structured lending
- Fixed income products
- Alternative investments
And a great many others as well.
If you merely read his pamphlets, Kevin McMullen Merrill Lynch certainly gives off the impression of being a reliable financial advisor. On the other hand, if you were to check into his disclosures, you would see that the majority of the statements he makes are not true and that he is solely concerned about increasing his profits. You’re going to find out why it’s so hard to put your faith in him in the following portion of this analysis.
Red Flags in Kevin McMullen Merrill Lynch
$90,000 Dispute with a Client
Kevin McMullen According to the information provided by Merrill Lynch’s FINRA BrokerCheck listing, he has been involved in one customer dispute. The argument started in the year 2001. In this case, the client accused FC of investing the money in an inappropriate manner.
The customer made a claim for damages totaling $90,000.
On the other hand, Kevin’s company did not respond in any way to the claim. You are unable to learn the reason why his company did not take any action regarding the problem because there is no extra information that is available. Kevin has kept the majority of the details of the disagreement a secret due to the fact that it is an old quarrel.
Nevertheless, having a quarrel about unsuitable recommendations costing you 90 thousand dollars is not a little matter. It indicates that Kevin can easily ignore the criteria of his client in order to make an additional buck. As you read through his disclosures, you will come to the conclusion that he is still putting his own financial interests ahead of those of his customers.
Financial advisors that are dishonest will resort to a variety of deceptions in order to sidestep responsibility. In 2003, The Miller Miller Group Morgan Stanley was one other financial advisory business besides The Miller Miller Group that employed this same strategy to dismiss a claim.
Putting Clients at Excessive Risk
The fact that he bases his compensation on how well his clients succeed is the first problem raised by his disclosures. If your financial advisor uses this fee structure, it means that he will only earn compensation if he is able to outperform a given index.
On paper, it might look like a lucrative fee arrangement, but in practice, it might not be. But the reality is that it is a disaster for virtually all types of investment.
The reason for this is that financial advisors who adhere to this fee structure have the incentive to ignore the level of risk that their clients are willing to take. The majority of financial advisors employ high-risk techniques that are damaging to their client’s portfolios in an effort to outperform the index.
Strategies with a high degree of risk almost never result in favorable returns. The majority of the time, they offer investor returns that are subpar or even negative. In addition, the majority of investors have limited tolerance for risk and do not want immediate profits from their investments.
If the advisor is adhering to a performance-based fee structure, however, they would not care about your low-risk tolerance.
Strategies with a high level of risk could end up wiping out significant portions of an investor’s wealth. Because of this, in 1940, Congress passed a law that prohibited charging performance-based payments. Many investors were suffering financial losses as a direct result of the avarice of their advisors.
Since 1985, financial advisors have had the ability to base their fees on the performance of their client’s investments.
Giving Advice That Can Be Found All Over the Place
Kevin McMullen Merrill Lynch manages client relationships on a side-by-side basis and works with a wide variety of customers. Due to the fact that side-by-side management lowers the level of service an adviser provides, this is an extremely concerning red sign.
A financial advisor who manages both small retail accounts and huge funds simultaneously is said to do side-by-side management. When this occurs, the adviser directs the majority of his efforts and resources into serving his more significant clients, while providing advice that is formulaic to his more manageable clients.
There is no situation that is more frustrating than being provided with generic advice from your advisor under the pretense of receiving individualized care.
Conclusion
In spite of the fact that Kevin McMullen Merrill Lynch makes a lot of pompous boasts about the quality of his services, he doesn’t give a damn about his customers. His declarations contain an excessive number of potential conflicts of interest.
Because of all of these issues, it is strongly recommended that you look for a new financial advisor and stay well away from Kevin.
