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August 25, 2024 2024 Fact Book: Doing Business in Maine

Back Cove Financial: Honest, Independent, Experienced

PHOTO courtesy of Back Cove Financial Pictured advisors back row left to Sheila Menair, CDFA®; Sarah Halpin, CFP®, CBEC®, CPFA®; Joel Ouellette; Christine Byrne, MBA, CRPS® — Pictured advisor front row: Sophie Halpin, CFP®, CSRIC™

At Back Cove Financial, our mission is to provide honest, independent, experienced financial advice and wealth management. We are real people, driven to recommend what is in the best interests of each and every client. We define our success by our positive impact on people’s lives.

We create financial solutions that are accessible, transparent, and empowering for our clients. A purposeful approach and unwavering commitment to service has been the cornerstone of Back Cove Financial since it was founded by Christine Byrne, Partner, Wealth Advisor. The addition of Sarah Halpin and her team built on these principles resulting in strategic growth across all layers of the business. As partners, Christine and Sarah combine their leadership skills, experience, and different perspectives to lead a dynamic and cohesive team with a “collaboration over competition” culture.

We’ve leveraged our strengths to achieve breakthrough goals in productivity, employee engagement and client satisfaction. We want clients to spend more time living their lives to the fullest and less time worrying about money.
— Sarah Halpin, CFP®, CBEC®, CPFA® Partner, Wealth Advisor

The flagship office is located in the commercial center of Falmouth, Maine, easily accessible from Route 1, the Maine Turnpike and I- 295. In May 2024 Back Cove Financial was thrilled to open our second location in the heart of Maine Street’s business district in downtown Brunswick. Our financial advisors work out of and meet with clients at both locations; and they all advise, connect with and service clients throughout the USA.

Honest, Independent, Experienced: More Than a Tagline

We provide independent advice and access to a variety of non-proprietary investment products and financial planning services. We make recommendations based on a clear understanding of your goals and financial situation while keeping abreast of current capital markets. We are not compensated in any way for recommending one investment vehicle over another. Back Cove Financial advisors are deeply experienced in managing wealth through good times, challenging periods, and everything in between. You can be confident in the professional experience, sound judgment, and stable history that has enabled us to assist clients in planning for their financial and life goals through the following tenets:

  • Purpose Driven: A client centric process with focused outcomes for all. In our work with clients, we find that the more clear we are at the outset in understanding goals and aspirations, the better outcome for all. This is why we understand your why before we discuss the how. We believe that when it comes to creating a plan for your wealth, your vision informs our process. We work together to assemble the pieces in a way that fits for you.
  • Modern Wealth: Modern wealth deserves a modern mindset. We engage, educate, and empower families navigating the challenges of multi-generational wealth. Our advisor team includes first and second-generation Americans, first- and second-generation college graduates, first- and second-generation business owners and first- and second-generation wealth creators. We integrate financial literacy opportunities into our discussions around personal finance, investments, and taxes. We take proactive steps to help ensure that family wealth plans engage all and are managed to benefit family and legacy goals.
  • Inclusive Approach: Emotional intelligence, intuition, and empathy are skills that we find are invaluable in helping clients. With five times as many female advisors as the industry average (1) we innately take a thoughtful, personalized approach to wealth management. We believe in the business benefits of diversity, creating an environment that is inclusive and reflects the clients we serve. We continue to look for opportunities to broaden the diversity of our clientele and our team members.
PHOTO courtesy of Back Cove Financial
Back Cove Financial partners pictured left to Christine Byrne, MBA, CRPS®; Sarah Halpin, CFP®, CBEC®, CPFA®

Services to Help You Live Your Best Life

We want our clients to feel confident with their finances so they can live their best lives on their terms. Our “Services to Help You Live Your Best Life” process clarifies goals that resonate most deeply with clients. What does living your best life mean to you? How does money influence your daily life? How do decisions around money relate to the other things you are doing with your life? While we offer all the traditional services of a wealth management firm, our true differentiator is our daily work with our clients around their visions.

In keeping with our tenant of inclusivity we are committed to equitable access of financial advice. We are proud to offer a wide variety of personalized programs and services tailored to individual clients, families and businesses. These options include asset based advisory, hourly fixed wealth consulting, retirement plan consulting and our subscription-based model, Perennial Plan.

Our Investment Philosophy

The Back Cove Financial Investment Committee meets quarterly and follows a consistent, disciplined investing process.

  • We believe that asset allocation, how investment assets are divided among different asset classes, is one of the most important investment decisions we can make together.
  • We do not believe in speculative or short-term market timing activities. We focus on long-term solutions to best serve our clients.
  • We believe that income producing investments are a critical component to the total return of a diversified portfolio.

We love the long-term relationships we have with our clients, working for them and their families. Watching them achieve a lifelong goal is one of the most fulfilling outcomes of our planning together. We are grateful to be able to contribute to their successes.
— Christine Byrne, MBA, CRPS® Partner, Wealth Advisor

A Certified Benefit Corporation

Back Cove Financial is a qualified team of professionals dedicated to workplace excellence. In 2023, through a team effort, Back Cove Financial became a Certified Benefit Corporation (B Corp). From our founding, we have been driven to pursue better outcomes not only for our clients, but all stakeholders of our business.

The B Corp Certification is an objective 3rd party process that benchmarks our team to high standards of compliance in five areas: Customers, Governance, Workers, Community, and Environment. Back Cove Financial boldly and bravely sets intentional goals and takes action to be a specialized and robust business model.

  • Every advisor at Back Cove Financial has adopted stakeholder governance into their corporate documents, requiring that the purpose of the Company shall include creating a material positive impact on society and the environment, taken as a whole, from the business and operations of the company.
  • Organizations that provide people with their basic needs resonate deeply with our own values. We focus on efforts to eradicate food insecurity and to support the homeless or home insecure community. We proudly support cancer research. As a women owned business, we support programs which focus on women’s leadership.
  • Back Cove Financial holds itself accountable to their environmental, economic, and social impacts through an emphasis on community involvement and sustainable action. Together their team works towards the common goal of maintaining a paperless office, avoiding single use products, composting, recycling, utilizing an EV charging station, and employing one of Maine’s few CSRIC designees.
  • Our pro bono financial planning program, “Spreading Your Wings”, helps people take control of their financial lives and provides a positive impact on individuals, families, and our community. Giving back is part of our workplace culture and dedicated financial advisors affiliated with Back Cove Financial volunteer essential financial services to underserved individuals.

Our work here is never finished. We are continuously committed to overcoming challenges and seeking out opportunities to raise the bar higher in our service to clients, employees, and our community.

Our Culture

Back Cove Financial team members proudly emphasize a shared commitment towards values that promote growth, flexibility, mutual respect, and community support. Our core values ask that team members act with integrity, honesty, and transparency to do what is best for our clients, each other, and the company. You can find us in the community at local business, B Corp, and multigenerational leadership events. We hold empowerment and responsibility for personal development close to our hearts and believe all voices within our team matter and make us stronger, both personally and professionally. We describe our culture as warm, friendly, caring, inclusive, empowering, and uplifting. We feel fortunate to have a team upholding our values and culture together.

Back Cove Financial

56 Depot Road, Falmouth, ME 04105

167 Park Row, Brunswick, ME 04011

Sector: Financial Services/Wealth Management

Christine Byrne, MBA, CRPS®, Partner, Wealth Advisor and Sarah Halpin, CFP®, CBEC®, CPFA®, Partner, Wealth Advisor

Founded: 2001

Maine employees: 10

backcovefinancial.com / (207) 541-9500

1 (Olivia Howard, Pooneh Baghai Lakshmi Prakash, and Jill Zucker, 2020

Securities and advisory services offered through Commonwealth Financial Network®, Member FINRA/SIPC, a Registered Investment Adviser.