The Dispatch

Letter from CEO Bob Herrmann

Since our acquisition of the TAMP and investment manager 3D/L Capital Management (“3D”) over one year ago, our two registered investment advisory companies have been gradually integrating systems, operations, personnel, and investment decision-making, culminating on November 1, 2023, in a single advisory business. The 3D advisors and their clients will be brought onto the Freedom Advisors platform. This will have no impact on your day-to-day work with us.

In preparation for the coming transition, this week we are making the following changes:

• To eliminate brand confusion, we are renaming EQIS Capital Management, Inc. to Freedom Investment Management, Inc. and will use the shortened brand “Freedom” with investors.
• We will retain the EQIS and 3D brands only in the model names, which investors typically do not see.
• Our corporate headquarters will now be our office in Hartford, CT where our colleagues from 3D have worked for many years. We, of course, continue with many staff in California and across the country, but the official legal and mailing address will be 100 Constitution Plz, Fl 7, Hartford, CT 06103.

This year we have continued our ambitious efforts to improve and expand the solutions and services in support of your business. We have dramatically increased the number of money managers and models, almost exclusively through advisor request. We have introduced highly rated retirement plan solutions that are proving very popular with advisors. Operational processing automation and ease of use is where we have made the most advancements and have the most upgrades currently in process, doing what we can to insulate advisors from the challenges of custodians and to free advisors to do what you do best.

As our model marketplace has expanded to include many more single sleeve ETF models with lower minimums, we are receiving ongoing requests from advisors for exceptions to our $25,000 account minimum. We find it difficult to say no in many instances where the advisor has already met with the client and simply forgot about the minimum requirement, but it is not financially viable for our business to be billing an account 70 cents a month. To facilitate these occasional requests for exceptions, we are instituting a monthly account minimum of $12.50, the same minimum as Charles Schwab. Although this impacts very few of our 10,000+ clients, we must include notice of this minimum in the communication to clients along with the name and address change.

In advance of the next email to your clients of the Monthly Performance & Billing Report in mid-October, we will send an announcement to them of the name change so they are not confused when the email arrives from Freedom Investment Management. We will also prominently reference EQIS in that monthly report mailing so your clients recognize the communication.

We are honored and privileged to serve you and support your practices. I encourage you to keep sharing your ideas and needs so we remain focused on your priorities for managing and growing your business.

Regards,

Bob