Carolina Financial Services Group, Inc.

The firm provides investment management and financial planning to individuals, pension and profit-sharing plans, trusts, estates, charitable organizations, and small businesses, managing roughly $40 million for about 100 clients with a single adviser on staff. It does not impose a formal account minimum and offers ongoing portfolio management alongside retirement-planning consultations.

CFSG delivers both discretionary and non-discretionary portfolio management using fundamental, technical, and cyclical analysis and employs portfolio-monitoring tools to review accounts; it also participates in an Active401k retirement program in which Q3 Advisors, LLC is the third‑party program provider and is granted discretion to implement plan allocations. The firm charges asset-based advisory fees (a common practice among peers), uses a custodian relationship for trade execution and custody, and provides quarterly custodian reporting to clients.

Noteworthy distinctions include that, unlike most supported peers, the firm does not serve high‑net‑worth individuals, and its adviser(s) are licensed insurance agents who may earn separate commission income from insurance sales—a conflict of interest the brochure discloses. The firm also does not vote client proxies (clients receive and vote their own proxies), and the principal discloses outside business activities (a consulting business and passive property interests) in the brochure.