- Fee-onlyno commissions
- No account minimumfor investment management
- English & Spanishnatively
- Accepting new clientsIn person in Norwalk, by video, or at your Tarzana business
- Fiduciaryin writing, always
- DFPI-registeredCRD #311270
- In business sinceDecember 2020
- Free 15-minute callno obligation
We work with the physicians, dentists, therapists, attorneys and accountants whose practices line Ventura Boulevard, with staff from the Tarzana hospital campus, and with entertainment-industry households on both sides of the boulevard. Two problems dominate: a practice owner whose retirement plan is in fact the practice, and a household whose income triples and then halves depending on what the year brought in.
Start with the honest part: we are 40.8 miles from Tarzana
We do not have an office in Tarzana, and we are not going to imply otherwise with a service-area pin. our principal office is at 12838 Rosecrans Ave in Norwalk, about 40.8 miles away. If a firm's Tarzana page does not tell you where its actual office is, that is worth noticing — the August 2026 teardown of this market found out-of-area firms running dozens of city pages each, including one with a Norwalk page containing nothing about Norwalk.
So the question is not proximity. It is whether what we do is worth the drive, a video call, or us coming to you — because we do all three, and evenings run by video. Two things travel perfectly well over distance and are unusually hard to find at any distance: a fee schedule published on the website, and a fiduciary standard you can hold us to in writing. Neither requires us to be down the street.
Is your financial advisor in Tarzana actually a fiduciary?
Most people assume yes. The answer depends on how the person is registered. An investment adviser representative owes a fiduciary duty — care and loyalty, across the whole relationship, and it cannot be waived. A registered representative of a broker-dealer is held to Regulation Best Interest, which attaches at the moment of a recommendation and, in the SEC's own words, imposes no duty to monitor an account absent an agreement.
Both can be good at the job. They are not the same promise. You can check any firm in ten minutes: Form ADV at adviserinfo.sec.gov, individuals on BrokerCheck, and the Form CRS. Ours is linked here, and the standard is spelled out on our fiduciary page. Aduna Capital is fee-only: paid by clients, by nobody else, with no commissions and no proprietary products. The full comparison is here →
Who we work with in Tarzana
Ventura Boulevard through Tarzana is one of the densest professional-services corridors in Los Angeles County. Above the ground-floor retail there are internal medicine and paediatric suites, orthodontics and oral surgery, dermatology, physical therapy, psychology practices, small law firms, CPA offices, escrow and title, insurance agencies and real estate brokerages. Providence Cedars-Sinai Tarzana Medical Center anchors the middle of it, which is why so much of the surrounding tenancy is clinical. Tarzana also carries a substantial Iranian-American and Israeli-American population whose family businesses, multigenerational households and relatives abroad shape the financial questions here.
The median household income of $93,760 badly understates the spread. Behind that single number are apartment tenants north of the boulevard, salaried clinical staff, and practice owners in the hills whose taxable income moves by a factor of two depending on collections, partner draws and whether the practice bought equipment. A median is a poor description of a place where the distribution has two humps, and generic advice built for the median helps neither hump.
For a practice owner the central issue is that the business is simultaneously the income, the retirement asset and the thing that cannot be sold quickly. For an entertainment household it is that the good year has to fund the bad one. Both are income-smoothing problems with the same structural answer: a reserve sized to a slow year, a retirement plan that can absorb a large contribution when there is one to make, and a tax conversation held in October rather than April. How we approach it.
The local employer base
Providence Cedars-Sinai Tarzana Medical Center
Employed clinical and administrative staff are in a hospital-system retirement plan — a 403(b) or 401(k) with an employer contribution, not a public pension. Physicians with admitting privileges are usually not employees at all and need their own plan entirely. Healthcare.
Independent medical and dental practices
One to fifteen employees, an owner in a high bracket, and frequently no plan beyond a SEP opened years ago. A safe-harbor 401(k) with profit sharing, or a cash balance plan on top, usually moves several times more. Dental practices · Medical practices.
Law, accounting, escrow and brokerage offices
Partner and owner income arrives on a K-1, irregularly, with estimated taxes attached. The planning problem is cash-flow timing rather than product selection, and the retirement plan has to be sized in a month when the number is knowable. Law firms · Accounting.
Entertainment-industry households
Crew members are covered through the Motion Picture Industry Pension and Health Plans, where eligibility is earned in qualifying hours rather than salary. Performers, writers and directors are in their own guild plans. Residuals arrive on their own schedule. More on that here.
Public pensions and rollovers
Almost nobody in Tarzana is in CalPERS or CalSTRS. The functional equivalents are the hospital 403(b), the practice owner's own qualified plan, and the entertainment multiemployer plans — and those behave nothing like each other. A multiemployer plan credits you by hours worked under a collective agreement, which means a slow year costs you pension credit as well as income. A practice owner's plan credits you exactly what you decide to contribute, which means the discipline is entirely yours. The systems compared.
If you are leaving a job, the rollover decision is where the most money is quietly lost — the 20% mandatory withholding under IRC § 3405(c) catches people who take the cheque themselves. The four options, step by step · Seven costly mistakes · Run the numbers. For public employees: CalPERS, CalSTRS, LACERA and OCERS explained.
A first conversation about Tarzana money, at no cost
Fifteen minutes on the phone. If your question has a short answer you will get it on the call, and if we are not the right firm for you we will say that too.
Our fees, published
No competing advisor page in this area publishes its fees. Here are ours.
| What | Fee |
|---|---|
| Investment management | 1.5% to 2.0% of assets per year; Advisers may set a rate below the standard schedule, as low as 0%, at their discretion — and whatever rate applies to you is disclosed in writing before you engage. Our Form ADV Part 2A, Item 5, states the fee as up to 2.00% of assets per year, subject to negotiation; the firm may waive all or part of it. Generally billed quarterly in arrears |
| Account minimum | No minimum account balance |
| Commissions and product fees | None — we are fee-only |
| Solicitor compensation | May be received or paid under disclosed arrangements |
| Initial conversation | Free, 15 minutes, no obligation |
Complete fee details in our Form ADV Part 2A, Item 5.
Tarzana questions
I left a medical group to go independent. What retirement plan should the practice have?
It depends on how many employees you have, how old they are relative to you, and how stable the profit is. A solo practice with no staff can use a solo 401(k) immediately. Add employees and you are into safe-harbor design and coverage testing, and above a certain steady profit a cash balance plan alongside it becomes the efficient answer. We design against your census, not a brochure. Business plans.
My parents live abroad and we send money home every month. How should that sit in the plan?
As a fixed commitment, budgeted like any other, not as whatever is left at month end — that is what makes it crowd out retirement saving. Separately, foreign accounts and foreign gifts carry their own US reporting obligations that are easy to miss and expensive to miss twice; that part belongs with a CPA experienced in cross-border filings. Supporting parents.
My income looks large but my overhead eats it. Am I actually behind?
Possibly, and the way to know is not a feeling. The number worth tracking is what leaves the practice and reaches your household each year, and what percentage of that is being saved. High gross revenue with thin margins and a big mortgage is one of the most common ways a high-earning professional reaches fifty-five with less than a salaried employee. Run it honestly.
Do you actually meet clients from Tarzana, or is this page just for search?
We meet them. Our office is at 12838 Rosecrans Ave in Norwalk, about 40.8 miles from Tarzana — clients come to us, we come to them, or we meet by video, and evening appointments can be arranged. What we will not do is claim an office in Tarzana that does not exist. Call (657) 571-2607. We are registered as an investment adviser in California.
What is the account minimum?
There isn't one to open. We ask for $50 a month of continuing deposits, because a plan you do not fund is not a plan. Our fee is 1.5% to 2.0% of assets under management per year, billed quarterly, and it is published — which is more than most firms in this market will tell you before a meeting.
¿Atienden en español?
Sí. Atendemos en español, y buena parte de nuestro material existe en español, escrito originalmente, no traducido por máquina.