Charleton Financial, Planning Your Dreams

A Letter to Our Clients from
Michael and Bruce Charleton

Our goal is to be the best financial advisory firm in the United States-bar none. In late 2008, we began making the first of many changes to move toward that goal. We want to give you a quick report on our progress.

A deeper relationship with Lincoln Financial Advisers Corp.

We are very glad that we decided to work with Lincoln Financial Advisers Corp., our new broker-dealer. Lincoln provides brokerage services through Fidelity and provides us enhanced planning, technology, and investment platforms, all of which amount to higher levels of service and quality for our clients.

We attended two Lincoln conferences recently. Here are some of the highlights:

1. We received an update about Capitol Hill, and the TARP Plan
   and tax reform. We were told to expect tax increases for higher income brackets. We plan to work with high-income clients to anticipate and plan for these increases.
2. Planning is essential to help you toward financial success. Lincoln offers a systematic approach to assist each client toward financial independence, through wealth management, retirement planning, business owner planning, and estate/asset protection strategies.
3. In our 25 years of investment experience we have concluded that in investing there are textbook, practical, and scientific approaches, and that we need to combine all three to be effective. It has been very satisfying to realize that Lincoln also melds all three to form the backbone of a comprehensive investment management approach.
4. Lincoln Financial Advisers has the motto: Serve First, Serve Last, Serve Always. We experienced great camaraderie with the Lincoln team and other affiliated financial advisers. They were invariably open and generous in sharing innovative approaches, both practical and theoretical, to financial planning, asset allocation, and practice management.
5. Lots of new information! We attended workshops and training sessions on retirement planning, saving for retirement, insurance underwriting, long term care insurance, asset allocation modeling, estate planning, wealth management, income distribution strategies, and the use of mathematics as a tool to assist in financial planning. All this technical training will help us to provide more sophisticated advice and planning for you!

We also had a private one-hour meeting with the Lincoln management team to review the transition process. We feel that they care very much about our success in serving our clients, and constantly improving their own service and support.

Sometimes, the Lincoln value will be like the engines of a great ship, moving you forward but out of sight and mind. At other times it will be abundantly clear to you. When we have our next portfolio review with you, for example, you will see the extraordinary quality of Lincoln’s Asset Allocation Report. It shows your risk tolerance against the inventory of assets within your portfolio, and even within individual funds, in a way that is clear, simple, and easy to understand. We are impressed, and we think that you will be too!

New in-house professional support: Introducing Sharon Jones

We welcome Sharon Jones, our new Administrative Assistant, whom you will meet in the reception area or on the telephone. Our clients tell us that Sharon’s friendly, helpful approach, get-it-done attitude, and professionalism have helped raise our client service to a new level. Sharon has worked in financial services for more than ten years, including over four years as a Financial Sales Assistant for the Sagemark Consulting arm of Lincoln Financial Advisers Corp., so she is very familiar with both financial planning and the services and resources that Lincoln brings to us. If you haven’t met Sharon, give her a call!

Best regards,

Michael J. Charleton, Jr., CFP^®, CFS, CLTC
Senior Partner

Bruce G. Charleton, M.B.A., CLTC
Partner

CRN200903-2028375