HISTORY OF THE COMPANY - 2001
Mary Adams O’Connell formed Adams O’Connell, Inc. (“AOC”) in 2001 to oversee and grow client investments. The assets were in industrial properties, commercial office buildings, multi-family housing, and public and closely held securities.
With the addition of Liesel Reinisch as Chief Operating Officer in 2002, AOC began a process of geographically diversifying clients’ real estate assets. At the time, all industrial and commercial real estate holdings were in or near Los Angeles County; the geographic risk was high. AOC sold select local commercial and industrial holdings using tax advantaged techniques, and purchased new properties in Salt Lake City, San Antonio, Houston, and San Diego. This strategy achieved not only geographic diversity but also higher returns.
AOC diversified investments in other ways. For clients with a tolerance for risk, AOC began offering private equity investments both in emerging companies with enduring growth and profitability, and in private equity investment firms. This allocation of client assets to private equity further diversified their portfolios and offered increased long-term returns. Additionally AOC partnered with Registered Investment Advisors who oversee clients' public security portfolios.
AOC holds a long-term view of investments - remaining invested and allowing for times of market volatility. Its clients’ real estate holdings are largely long-held income producing properties providing quarterly cash distributions. Due to the number and diversity of real estate holdings, the annual income streams are relatively stable. AOC believes this strategy produces great benefits - regular distributions increasing over time and real estate valuations which also increase over time. Additionally, AOC clients find the illiquidity of real estate investments helpful in estate planning. Clients retain a proportion of cash appropriate to their specific needs.
One of the unique strategies available at AOC is the Five Year Plan, adapted from another family office. AOC believes the plan can effectively counteract the shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves axiom. The assets of most families dissipate over time due to two factors: family members requiring regular and increasingly larger distributions from their assets, and the multiplication of beneficiaries with each succeeding generation. Ultimately, asset growth cannot keep up with the distribution demands of beneficiaries, and family capital dwindles. The Five Year Plan has been successful in providing for asset growth, limiting distributions, and instilling personal responsibility, planning and budgeting in successive generations of family members.
Since inception, AOC has provided cost effective investment and management services. It continues to grow, maximize and preserve the wealth of its clients and their future generations by deploying strategies and practices honed from the knowledge, experiences and creativity of its management team.
