Birmingham, MI Office

CIBC Private Wealth Advisors provides investment advisory and wealth advisory services to a broad client base including individuals (including high net worth clients), families, trusts, employee benefit plans, corporations and, notably, investment companies. Services described in the brochure include portfolio management (both discretionary and non-discretionary), financial, estate and philanthropic planning, manager selection, access to options strategies and, on request, coordinated Family Office services for complex needs.

The firm’s investment process combines an internal investment team, Relationship Managers and governance through an Investment Policy Committee and an Asset Allocation Committee to build customized separate accounts, model portfolios and managed account programs. It uses a mix of proprietary offerings and external managers, licenses its own benchmark indices for product development, and offers strategies that can include options hedges and structured notes as part of portfolio implementation.

What distinguishes the firm among large enterprises is its scale relative to advisor headcount — the brochure reports about $67.8 billion in assets with 175 advisors, implying materially higher AUM per advisor than most peers — and its involvement with investment company clients and portfolio management for investment companies (including acting as adviser to several CIBC Atlas funds). The firm also operates within a family of affiliates (for example, CIBC National Trust Company) that provide private placement, trustee and related services and participates in referral and platform programs such as the Schwab Advisor Network and Fidelity Wealth Advisor Solutions.