Company Perspective

We started our business by serving teachers nearing retirement. Teachers still make up the core of our business. My Dad (with whom I started this business nearly 25 years ago), was a teacher. For a time, I followed in his footsteps, teaching investment courses at the local community college.

As an investment advisor, part of my job is educating clients on the fundamentals of investing. We do that through regular communication. We are readily available to meet with our clients in-person or by phone. We also provide and educational quarterly newsletter.

We don’t assume that our clients are fully versed in the complexities of the investment business. We don’t speak in jargon. And we keep our investment strategy simple and easy to understand. We want our clients to fully understand and feel comfortable with their investments.

But teaching is only part of the equation. A much bigger part of our job, is listening. Each client has unique concerns, questions and goals. It doesn’t make sense to tell a client what we think about investing, until we know how a client feels about investing.

We also want clients feeling good about investing. Just like our clients, we have families and want to leave the world a better place for our kids. We try to match a client’s values with their investment portfolio. We do this by researching Socially Responsible Investments. We can provide investments that meet criteria based on; sustainability, faith, environmental, social, governance, and other factors.

Lastly, we aim to create a portfolio that matches our client’s risk tolerance. We do this by taking into account a client’s investment experience, age, goals and their temperment. With the aid of a program called “Riskalyze”, we use a questionnaire and a discussion of portfolio models to get an idea how a client feels about investing their money. Then we can individually match a portfolio to that client. In this way, a client can be confident that their portfolio is aligned with their long-term goals and risk tolerance.

Nothing beats experience, however. The longer we work with a client, the more we can fine-tune their actual comfort level with various investment portfolios and market situations. That’s why building long-term relationships is so important in our business.

We strive to build long-term relationships with our clients. It not only makes doing business together more fun, but makes the relationship more successful and the results more profitable.

We are not in the business of making quick gains in the market. Through planning, communication, time, and extensive knowledge of the investment industry, we aim to put our client’s worries at ease. We truly enjoy working with our clients, and helping them reach their financial goals.

RIBERA INVESTMENTS, Company History

Written by Tyler Ribera, company president

In 1986, I began working for Charles Schwab and Co. at their headquarters in downtown San Francisco. That was a seminal experience for me; where I met my wife, Sandra, where I passed the Series 7 and 63 exams, and where I gained much of my investment knowledge and experience. Part of my time there was spent working with Investment Advisors like myself now. I would place trades, handle investment situations, calculate margin requirements, resolve issues with their relationship with Schwab, etc.

I met many of these advisors personally, and a lot of them reminded me of my Dad. They were knowledgeable, friendly, professional, and seemed to have a high degree of integrity. Meanwhile, my Dad was going on 30 years as a business professor at Chabot College. He regularly met with other teachers who were nearing retirement. They would seek him out for advice on which retirement options to choose, and how to plan their retirement.

At one point I told my Dad that he should consider becoming an investment advisor, similar to the ones I had been working with. He said that he would consider it only if I would go into business with him. And that's where it stopped for a while. I had a steady job that I liked, and wasn't ready to give that up.

In 1992, shortly after Sandra and I were married, my department at Schwab (Schwab Institutional) announced that it would be moving to Phoenix, Arizona. My options were to move to Phoenix and stay with Schwab, or leave my job and start this business with my Dad.

For almost 20 years, my Dad and I built this business together. We built it slowly, client by client. We fell into our various roles naturally. My Dad handled much of the administrative, regulatory, and accounting aspects of the business, and I handled much of the investment research and communications with Schwab. The client relationships we always handled together, usually meeting with clients together in the conference room.

In the late 1990's, I began taking night classes at Cal State East Bay and earned a Master's degree in Economics. My wife and I became parents of three boys during that time. I also followed in my Dad's footsteps and began teaching a night class on Personal Investing at Chabot College.

Meanwhile, managing investments in a volatile market was not always easy. We endured the collapse of the tech bubble, and the market closure following the tragedy at the Twin Towers on 9/11, the sub-prime mortgage meltdown of 2008 and 2009, and many ups and downs both in the markets and in the lives of our clients.

Over nearly two decades, my Dad and I worked together, played golf together and had our annual, RIBERA Investment Management, LLC Christmas party together. That would be the long lunch at La Val's Pizza sometime in December, where my Dad and I would share a pizza and a pitcher of beer.

Since his passing in 2010, I've run the business mostly on my own. I've tried to stay true to his values and his vision of working with clients. He truly enjoyed, as I do, working with our clients, and helping to ensure a comfortable retirement for them. He always put the relationship first no matter what. And he always made integrity a priority over profit.

I like to think that he would be proud of the way that RIBERA Investment Management, LLC and it's clients have continued to strengthen and prosper in his absence.

Investment Strategy

We normally build a diversified portfolio of high-rated, no-load mutual funds. This allows for maximum diversification with a minimum of cost. In fact, many of these mutual funds can be bought and sold at no cost.

The amounts of each fund held is determined by the client’s risk profile and goals, which are tailored to each client’s individual situation.

We can also allocate some of a portfolio to Certificates of Deposit (CDs). Normally, we will structure a portfolio (or partial portfolio) of CDs so that some of the CDs mature at regular intervals. This is called “laddering” the maturity dates. A marketplace of CDs is available through Schwab at no cost.

This allows clients to take advantage of the FDIC insurance on all CDs purchased with us.

In some cases, clients will arrive with individual stocks, which we can also hold and manage. Most of our stock portfolios hold high quality (blue chip), dividend paying stocks, meant to be held for the long-term.

"Don't Let Short-Term Market Movement Distract You From Your Longer-Term Plan"