Mercer Street Personal Financial Services

Mercer Street Personal Financial Services is a registered investment adviser that offers financial planning and investment advisory services to individuals, high-net-worth clients, trusts, estates, business entities, charitable organizations and retirement plans. Its planning services cover a broad range of topics — retirement, tax, estate, insurance, business and international/cross-border planning — while investment work is implemented using client-chosen custodians rather than by holding client assets in-house.

For investment engagements the firm works with clients to develop an Investment Policy Statement and typically constructs balanced, low-cost, tax‑efficient portfolios using mutual funds and ETFs tailored to liquidity needs, risk tolerance and time horizon. The brochure notes the firm provides implementation and ongoing monitoring, will disclose personal holdings when relevant, and only addresses cryptoassets upon a client’s specific request due to their distinct risks.

Compared with many investment managers, the firm’s billing approach is notable: it charges on an hourly basis rather than using a percentage-of-assets-under-management fee, and it offers prepaid consult sessions and project work — all of which the brochure highlights as negotiable and disclosed in engagement agreements. The firm also discloses ancillary activities and potential conflicts that are uncommon among peers, including affiliated tax and small-business consulting, participation in an institutional custodian program that provides non-monetary benefits to the adviser, and the practice’s small staffing model and trade execution practices (e.g., not aggregating trades).