The Newsletter Committee gave me a challenge: write an article on the evolution and history of Kerr Financial. I guess this is on their minds, as I approach 80 years old, and the company completes 45 years.
A challenge because I have always been focused on the future. What lies ahead for our clients, our employees, our company. Let’s start at the beginning.
We set out to help people be more businesslike about their finances. As Canadians became wealthier, they needed help managing their finances. Corporations had teams of financial advisors .Only wealthy individuals had advisors. We wanted everyone to do a better job.
But there was another challenge: How could we help individuals and charge them for it? People were not willing to pay a fee. They were getting free advice from family, friends, banks, newspapers. But were they getting specific, personalized advice? Was it useful? Objective? Mostly they got no advice. Or the advice they did get cost them a lot of money in fees and commissions built into insurance products, investments funds, brokerage commissions that salespeople thought would be good for the clients without asking too many questions.
But the advice was not objective, not specific and not necessarily in best interests of the client. So, we set out to do it the hard way: Charge hourly fees for the advice. The honest way.
At first it was easy. Tax laws offered many ways to reduce family taxes. Mutual funds charged too much for their results. Individuals were not getting specific financial plans. We would work to correct that. And so, we were leaders in this new profession called financial planning.
To pay for this expensive service for cost-sensitive clients, we also did business accounting and tax returns, which led to tax planning, trust administration, investment management and estate planning. We provided all the services an individual would need, except permanent life insurance, which we preferred to avoid as too costly. Term insurance was inexpensive. And we preferred to build towards self-insurance with retirement savings.
We delivered comprehensive financial plans and advice to individuals and in group seminars, especially over two-day seminars for corporations. A large Air Canada contract, delivered across the country, over two days per city, allowed us to travel and expand. And to develop a professional slide show and a detailed manual for participants.This became the basis for our best-selling book ‘’The Only Retirement Guide You’ll Ever Need’’(1993) and allowed me to become the President of the Canadian Association of Financial Planners.
Early on, we also benefited from writing a Monday morning financial column in the Montreal Gazette. This expanded to the Ottawa Citizen and the Financial Post. We got paid $300/week and it promoted our expertise to many new clients.
Other corporate clients came along, but we benefited mostly from serving individual clients who used our full-service offering and are still with us today. Krista Kerr has developed the Family Office management service for very wealthy families who use our full suite of services.
The strength of our boutique firm has been the talented people who work at Kerr Financial. They are young professionals supported by experienced administrators, all very focused on listening to our clients’ needs and responding with the best objective advice and services, CPAs, CFAs and TEPs who keep learning new skills and are long-standing supporters who know our clients well.
We are blessed to be led by Krista Kerr, who runs the Toronto office and Family Office division and is the CEO of the entire firm. She is a tireless financial advisor with a very bright mind. She leads a dedicated staff of senior managers who are committed to building the company.
As a result, Kerr Financial has evolved into a financial institution and a dedicated professional firm that provides all the personal financial services a growing family needs to thrive in Canada. I am very proud of the entire team and of the solid progression of the firm since it’s early days. Yet, what makes me the proudest is the long-lasting relationships we have earned with our clients and their families. A challenge, for sure… but what a rewarding journey!
Robert J. Kerr
