- Fee-onlyno commissions
- No account minimumfor investment management
- English & Spanishnatively
- Accepting new clientsIn person in Norwalk, by video, or at your Van Nuys business
- Fiduciaryin writing, always
- DFPI-registeredCRD #311270
- In business sinceDecember 2020
- Free 15-minute callno obligation
We work with Van Nuys public employees and their families: city staff at the Government Center and the airport, sheriff's and court personnel, Los Angeles Unified teachers and classified staff, and the business owners along Van Nuys Boulevard and Sherman Way. Five different retirement systems operate within a few blocks of one another here, and most people are only half certain which one they belong to.
Start with the honest part: we are 36.0 miles from Van Nuys
We do not have an office in Van Nuys, and we are not going to imply otherwise with a service-area pin. our principal office is at 12838 Rosecrans Ave in Norwalk, about 36.0 miles away. If a firm's Van Nuys 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 Van Nuys 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 Van Nuys
Van Nuys is where the Valley does its official business. The Government Center on Van Nuys Boulevard holds city offices and the Valley Municipal Building; the Van Nuys Courthouse handles the Superior Court's northwest business; the LAPD's Valley Bureau and Van Nuys Division are here; Van Nuys Airport, one of the busiest general aviation airports anywhere, is operated by the city; and Valley Presbyterian Hospital and a wide spread of Los Angeles Unified campuses fill in the rest. The former General Motors assembly plant that closed in 1992 is now a shopping centre, which is a fair summary of how the local employment base shifted from manufacturing to public service and retail.
That concentration produces something unusual and genuinely useful to write about. Within a few blocks you will find members of LACERS (city civilian staff), LAFPP (sworn police and fire), LACERA (county employees and Superior Court staff), CalSTRS (Los Angeles Unified certificated employees) and CalPERS (Los Angeles Unified classified employees). Five systems, five sets of tiers, five sets of survivor and beneficiary elections, and a 457(b) or 403(b) offered alongside most of them. Households routinely contain two of these systems and have never had anyone look at them together.
The other Van Nuys is the residential one: a large, predominantly Latino, working-class population, dense apartment blocks off Sepulveda and Victory, and a business corridor of auto shops, markets, clinics, insurance offices and restaurants. A lot of that work is first-generation — someone opening an investment account nobody in the family has held before, while also helping parents here and sometimes abroad. We do that work in Spanish as readily as in English, and the material was written in Spanish rather than translated. Todo en español · Nuestros servicios.
The local employer base
City of Los Angeles: civic centre and Van Nuys Airport
Civilian city employees are LACERS members; sworn police and fire are in LAFPP. Both have access to the city's 457(b) deferred compensation plan, and that account — not the pension — is where your own decisions matter. LACERS · 457(b) plans.
Los Angeles County and the Van Nuys Courthouse
County employees and Superior Court staff are LACERA members, with plan tiers that depend heavily on hire date and safety classification. The county's 457(b) sits beside it. LACERA · LACERA plans compared.
Los Angeles Unified School District
Certificated staff — teachers, counsellors, librarians — are in CalSTRS. Classified staff are in CalPERS. Both are offered 403(b) and 457(b) products at the work site, and the cost difference between the best and worst of those options is enormous. CalSTRS · LAUSD employees.
Van Nuys Boulevard and Sherman Way businesses
Auto repair, markets, restaurants, salons, clinics and insurance offices. All sit inside the state retirement mandate, and all are City of Los Angeles businesses — city tax registration and the city minimum wage, not the state floor. The owner's own retirement is a separate question. Auto repair · Restaurants.
Public pensions and rollovers
Van Nuys is the densest public-pension neighbourhood in this batch. LACERS, LAFPP, LACERA, CalSTRS and CalPERS are all here, and they differ on the things that matter most: the benefit formula, the earliest retirement age, how service credit may be purchased, whether the survivor election can be changed later, and whether you participate in Social Security at all. A two-earner household spanning two systems should coordinate the survivor elections rather than making them separately. All five explained · Buying service credit.
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 Van Nuys 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.
Van Nuys questions
I honestly don't know which retirement system I'm in.
That is more common than you would think in this neighbourhood, and it is answerable in ten minutes from a pay stub — the retirement deduction line names the system, and whether Social Security is being withheld tells you most of the rest. Bring one stub and your most recent annual benefit statement. We do not charge to identify what you have and what it is worth. The systems, side by side.
I have a 457(b) through the city. Is that enough on its own?
It depends on your pension tier and what you contribute, but the 457(b) has one feature worth knowing: governmental 457(b) withdrawals are not subject to the 10% early distribution penalty that applies to most 401(k) and IRA withdrawals before 59½, which makes it unusually useful for anyone retiring early on a safety formula. Rolling it into an IRA can forfeit that. What a 457(b) does.
Estoy manteniendo a mis padres y a mis hijos al mismo tiempo. ¿Por dónde empiezo?
Por escribir los números en una sola hoja: lo que entra, lo que sale, y cuánto de eso es apoyo familiar. Es un compromiso fijo y debe presupuestarse como tal, no con lo que sobra a fin de mes. Después viene la cuenta de retiro, aunque sea pequeña al principio. Apoyar a los padres sin dejar de ahorrar · Primera generación.
Do you actually meet clients from Van Nuys, or is this page just for search?
We meet them. Our office is at 12838 Rosecrans Ave in Norwalk, about 36.0 miles from Van Nuys — 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 Van Nuys 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.