Menlo Park, CA Office

Forum Financial Management, LP provides investment advisory and related services to individuals (including high-net-worth clients), retirement plan sponsors, charitable organizations, and other institutional and corporate clients. The firm offers discretionary and non-discretionary portfolio management, financial planning, retirement-plan advisory services, and sub-advisory/back-office services marketed through its Forum Advisor Alliance division to independent advisors and RIAs.

The firm constructs model asset-allocation portfolios grounded in Modern Portfolio Theory and primarily implements those models using institutional mutual funds and ETFs (notably DFA funds), supplemented by individual treasuries, municipal bonds, or individual bond strategies when appropriate. Forum also engages Outside Managers for separately managed accounts and, for qualified clients, may recommend private Exchange Funds, and it provides advisory access to held-away accounts via third-party connectors such as Plaid, Yodlee and Pontera.

Notable among its enterprise peers, Forum emphasizes wholesale relationships: it operates as a turn-key asset-management platform/sub-advisor and provides back-office, trading and reporting services to other RIAs, and its personnel include licensed attorneys and accountants whose separate practices the firm may recommend. The brochure also discloses a compensation arrangement with Spokas & Associates CPAs for tax services and a willingness to incorporate outside private investment vehicles, features that extend its service mix beyond standard retail and plan asset management.