Bernicke Wealth Management

Bernicke Wealth Management is a wealth management firm that provides discretionary investment management, financial planning (including standalone plans), retirement-plan advisory services, and consulting to individuals, high-net-worth clients, foundations, trusts, estates, corporations, and charitable organizations. The firm manages approximately $887 million in discretionary assets and typically begins client relationships under a discretionary investment management agreement with ongoing portfolio supervision.

The firm employs a macroeconomic, top-down asset-allocation approach to construct portfolios, using ETFs, bonds, stocks, mutual funds and, when suitable, alternatives such as interval funds, structured notes, and private funds; portfolios are managed discretely with periodic rebalancing and client-specified written restrictions. Bernicke Wealth supplements its investment process with an AI-driven quantitative model for pre-screening factor analysis and security selection, with human review of model outputs before implementation.

Distinctive operational and client-service features include relationships with a broader set of institutional clients than is typical for multi-team firms — including banking and insurance entities, other investment advisers, state or municipal entities, and sovereign wealth-type clients — and the ability to serve retirement plans under both 3(21) and 3(38) engagements. The firm’s use of less-liquid instruments (interval funds, structured notes, private placements), instances of dually registered representatives who may effect brokerage transactions, and reliance on third-party administrative and custodian support further differentiate its service model from many peers.