The Aequitas Way

Mission

Our mission is to Create and innovate business solutions that bring unique opportunities to investors and make a positive impact on the community.

Message:

Aequitas is an investment management firm that creates unique and innovative opportunities. We leverage technology, a lending subsidiary, and an elite partner network with a focus on undervalued niche strategies and capital protection.

Why?

Every organization knows what they do. Very few know why. People don’t buy what you do. They buy why you do it. The why of Aequitas is not only about profit. It is about purpose and belief. It answers the question, “Why do you get out of bed in the morning?” And, “Why should anyone care?”

The goal is not to do business by finding people who need what we have; the goal is to do business by finding people who believe what we believe. What we do simply serves as proof of what we believe. Inspire them with what we believe, and they will let us lead them — not for what we do, but for themselves because it is what they believe.

Inspire the believers, and the rest will follow. Our model of communication should speak from the why, not the how or what of what we do. Those details are necessary but should serve simply as support for the why. Our beliefs, and the inspiration that flows from them, is the why.

Voice

Our approach is consultative and enriched with storytelling because it allows us to impart the passion that inspires what we do. The driving force is inspiration, fueled by what we believe and focused on why we do what we do.

Vision

Aequitas Capital Management’s vision is to make a positive impact in this world by serving a greater purpose than just making money, by deploying funds in socially responsible markets, by being good stewards in every resource in our care, and giving back to the communities in which we live.

Credo

Turn possibility into opportunity.

What We Do

  • Seek, earn and retain clients
  • Grow relationships
  • Overcome challenges
  • Continuously improve and learn
  • Make money for our customers and our firm
  • We are truly in the “ business of business”
  • Have fun

Key Beliefs

We believe that Aequitas has been blessed with a business model that provides a platform for entrepreneurial opportunity. With this opportunity comes a duty to give back to our community, to our fellow man, and to help others. We have an incredible fiduciary responsibility to our clients, investors and employees. To meet this fiduciary responsibility requires integrity, honesty, disclosure, follow-through, and the willingness to treat our client’s capital and affairs as we treat our own. Under our business model we mentor, coach, and lead our clients and employees. We are active advisors, not advice givers. When in doubt, we share more – not less with clients, employees and community. We believe that the success of our business, our community and our nation is based on healthy relationships in the family.

We operate our business prudently, strive to keep our overhead low and provide opportunity to our employees through compensation-based programs that provide rewards commensurate with effort and success.  We believe that the success and growth of Aequitas is best achieved by keeping the fixed overhead risk low and by providing our employees the ability to realize the benefits of their efforts.

Philosophy

  1. We are opportunity seekers, not entitlement takers
  2. We create and earn, and cannot afford to sit and inherit.
  3. We are value driven and performance oriented
  4. We train and run both the sprint and the marathon. We rest, have fun, never quit and always seek to learn.
  5. We plan for succession and develop our future leaders.
  6. The truth of what we say is told by what we do.
  7. As we provide extraordinary service, we bring added value to the customer that cannot be duplicated.
  8. When we are wrong or fail, we admit it. Truth cannot be compromised.
  9. We promote others, not ourselves.
  10. We must be willing to serve. We should never ask anyone to do something that we would not be willing to do ourselves.
  11. To err is ok, as long as we learn and adjust.
  12. We ask for help and are comfortable admitting when we don’t know. It is how we learn.
  13. We have all been created in God’s image and the results of our leadership will be measured beyond the workplace. The story will be told in the changed lives of people.

Guiding Objectives for what we do

To honor our Creator in all we do

To help people develop and provide opportunity

To be highly regarded and trusted advisors

To pursue excellence and innovation

To grow profitably while giving back to employees and community

To honor our Creator in all we do
We live and work in a diverse and pluralistic society and we never allow religion or a lack thereof to become a basis for exclusion or how we treat each other professionally or personally. At the same time, we believe that the work environment need not be emasculated to a neutrality of no faith. Our faith is personal to each of us and not a corporate belief. We believe that God has invested each one of us with dignity, worth, potential and the freedom to choose. We demonstrate our belief in the dignity and worth of every person by our actions with those with whom we work and those with whom we serve. We believe that the teachings of God provide a moral compass as we determine the right way to run our business and our interactions with employees, customers and our families. Our intent is to serve God, not money, and to focus on significance, not just financial success.

To help people develop and provide opportunity
The success of our business lies in the training and development of people. We cannot deliver quality service to the customer without motivated and trained people. We believe that the modern-day firm must be a learning organization. Learning and innovation go hand in hand. It is the responsibility of each of us to be a teacher and a student, and to continue to learn and build upon our skills. Through our willingness to learn and develop, will come opportunity.

We aspire to be a great place to work: a progressive, dynamic and continuously improving company that embraces world-class practices in quality, timing, involvement and simplicity.

To be highly regarded and trusted advisors
We seek to be recognized as highly regarded and trusted advisors. This is demonstrated through the results of the success of our clients, the quality of our advice and services, and by the way we operate our firm. We are not afraid of the truth and we tell the truth to our clients. We strive continuously to build upon our reputation as well as to nourish and protect it. 

We will conduct ourselves with dignity, adhering to the highest ethical and moral standards.

We build and maintain solid relationships of respect among ourselves, our customers, and our suppliers, encouraging the growth and well-being of each employee.

To pursue excellence and innovation
We pursue excellence in all of our activities and demonstrate it through the quality of our service and advice, our willingness to learn and build upon our skills, and the development of our personnel. We demand results and do not tolerate mediocrity and incompetence. We recognize that we all make mistakes, but from those mistakes we learn and improve our value to the firm and our clients.

To grow profitably while giving back to employees and community
We believe that profit is a legitimate measurement of the value of our efforts. It is an essential source of capital. It is a requirement for survival of the individual, the family unit, and any organization. Profit is the excess of revenues over expenses. There can be no revenue without customers. Each of us has a responsibility to seek out, develop, and nurture profitable customer relationships, and expand those relationships. Revenues are not realized until our services are sold; we are all responsible for selling our services.

We recognize that profitable growth is a result of our employee efforts and strong communities, and as such, we must share the results of our success with our employees and our community.

We want to serve others, helping meet human needs in the community and beyond. When combined with our personal giving, we contribute more than 10% of our earnings for those opportunities.

Culture

How we strive to do things

  • Respect for people
    • We value each person’s intrinsic worth and uniqueness. We acknowledge everyone’s contribution and honor his/her opinions. Our work environment is open, honest, supportive and fulfilling. Our company is built on trust.
  • Respect for Actions and Results
    • We keep promises. Each person is empowered to make the organization succeed and is 100% accountable for his/her actions. We challenge the status quo, promote continuous improvement, and reward excellence. We lead by example and do not avoid difficult decisions. We invest in our people and operations for future growth and profit. We work safely, comply with laws, and are a good neighbor. We meet our commitments to shareholders, customers, and employees today and tomorrow.
    • If we cannot keep a promise, we let our teammates know it, and solicit assistance. We have a two-way culture of open communication, being able to go back and be honest with workload and promises.
  • Relationships with each other and Teamwork
    • Our success is built on quality relationships. We communicate openly and truthfully in a timely manner. We encourage constructive feedback. We are committed to each other and have fun together. We are helpful and compassionate. We treat others the way we want to be treated.
  • We operate to a high standard of integrity and ethics (when in doubt, do what feels “right and fair”).
  • We value the family as well as our work life, and consciously strive to balance our responsibility to each.
  • The customer comes first…they are the reason for our existence, the key to achieve all other objectives.
  • We operate based on spiritual principles (i.e. every interaction with others is “win-win,” applying the Golden Rule, and returning a portion of our gains to our source).
  • Openness, “straight talk” and honesty are encouraged and rewarded…areas of disagreement and conflict are discussed openly and resolved amicably.
  • We are, and are perceived as, a very professional organization (disciplined, effective, neat/clean appearance of facilities and individuals, active in professional organizations, etc.).
  • We are a “learning organization” committed to lifelong learning for the individual and the organization, and view our customers as desiring the same. Accordingly, we are open and willing to accept change.
  • When making tough decisions:
    • Face dilemmas head on
    • Be creative
    • Seek wisdom
    • Maintain perspective
    • Is it good for God, the organization, the employees, customers, vendors? If YES, then drive forward relentlessly and with persistence