Chestnut Investment Group aims to solve all your financial problems

Published in Rivertown Journal, December 2005

Neal Deutsch recalls one couple who came to him recently for help with handling their money. After meeting with Neal, President and CEO of the Suffern-based Chestnut Investment Group, the wife was clearly delighted with the advice she’d gotten. “This is really too good to be true,” she said delightedly to Neal. “Where have you been all of our lives?”

That’s a question Neal hears regularly in many different forms. He started Chestnut Investment in 1989. The company provides on-staff money managers, certified financial planners, attorneys, accountants and insurance specialists. “Everything we do for our clients we do here,” says Neal. We don’t bring in outside people.

Here at Chestnut we help out clients manage their financial lives. We take care of all details of their life. A typical client might have an insurance agent in one place, their lawyer in another, their accountants somewhere else, and money managers somewhere else. “We take all of those services and bring them all here in the house. So you don’t have a disjointed financial plan. You’re working with a team where everyone’s on your side.”

Neal’s wife, Elizabeth Deutsch, who’s senior vice president, works with here clients in teaching them the fine line between finance and the softer side of money. The relationship people have with money is a highly personal one, influenced by many factors ­ perhaps going back to childhood, or by personal experience. Identifying these factors can open a world of understanding to the psychology of money.

“I enjoy teaching women about the world of investing. The best investment a woman can make is in herself. I believe my life experience brings a distinct perspective to help empower women to take control of their finances.”

Neal adds: We’re not just about money here. We’re very geared towards people. I’m often told I excel as an estate planner and I’m a very good money manager. But I think I’m a problem solver. Between myself and my very skilled team, we always solve the problem. Clients doing business with us are doing business because we care about the clients and we care about their families.

A typical Chestnut client is a couple in their fifties or sixties. “Their net worth ­ not including residences ­ may be $500,000 or above. Usually they feel they have been handling their money all wrong and they want us to fix everything.” Neal adds: “ Its very funny ­ People will talk about their sex lives, their medications, but when you start talking about money they clam up. My feeling is it’s not a great secret. Does it really matter to your neighbor that you’ve got $50,000 or $50 million. Does he care? I don’t think so.”

Neal, who’s warm and outgoing with a great sense of humor, adds: “I take my work very seriously, but I’m not a serious guy.” Many clients think they recognize him when they first meet. “I was known as Neal from the Cheeserie in Spring Valley,” he recalls with a grin. “I left the food business when I was 30 and entered the financial world.”

Chestnut Investment doesn’t deal with commissions, they only work on a fee basis. Neal recalls a newspaper article that accurately summed up what Chestnut is all about: “They said that dealing with Chestnut is like dealing with a private country club. First you have to find them. Then you have to get in. But when you get in it’s a pleasure being there.”