Advisory Business
FIRM INFORMATION
Element Partners, LLC formed on July 4, 2021, is a registered investment advisory firm located in Pacific
Palisades, CA. In January 2022, Element Partners, LLC officially changed to Essential Partners LLC (“Essential
Partners,” “we,” “us,” “our”), We have been a registered with the SEC since August 2022.
Philosophy
• We are grateful to serve our client partners with a deeply personal commitment.
• We provide strategic financial consulting and comprehensive investment advisory.
• We own our firm and operate independently, which leads to objective advice, complete investment
autonomy, and a global view of our client partners’ financial position.
• We build investment portfolios from our foundational knowledge of businesses, economies, asset
classes, and global financial markets.
• We seek to achieve global diversification among asset classes and economic environments while
our network and domain expertise allows access to specialized investments.
• We believe unmodulated investor behavior and deficient tax planning has historically led to lower
realized investor returns.
• We partner with leading companies to safeguard and report on our client partners’ assets.
• We value simplicity and transparency in our interactions, investments, and fees.
Investment Approach – Bespoke, Balance, Behavior
• We build personalized portfolios for our client partners based on their risk tolerance, values,
income needs, and investment goals.
• We develop specialized investment strategies for various pools of capital such as cash
management for large institutions.
• We design asset allocation to build global portfolios that are diversified among asset classes
(equities, fixed income, etc.) and economic environments (rising/falling growth, rising/falling
inflation) with the understanding that the future is uncertain.
• We believe unmodulated investor behavior has historically led to lower realized investor returns.
• We utilize active and passive investment strategies and avoid all-or-nothing approaches, given the
historic cyclicality of performance between the two.
• We maintain a personal network of external investors that allow us to identify, scrutinize and
access specialized investments.
• We periodically rebalance portfolios, make tactical shifts, and pursue tax mitigation strategies.
Firm Values
1. Client Partnership – We are grateful to serve our client partners with a deeply personal
commitment to earn and sustain their trust.
2. Transparency – We value transparency, integrity, and honesty.
3. Continuous Improvement – We prioritize intellectual honesty and truthful feedback to adapt,
improve and increase learning velocity.
4. Teamwork – We respect and trust our client partners, team members, and outside business
relationships to engender teamwork.
5. Personal Discipline – We prioritize thoughtful, focused, and persistent effort.
6. Positive Morale – We have an optimistic and positive attitude.
PRINCIPAL OWNERS
Essential Partners is owned and controlled by Nick Bartolo, its Managing Member, and Chief Compliance
Officer.
INVESTMENT ADVISORY SERVICES
Asset Management Services:
We provide asset management services in which
we manage your custodial accounts and provide you with
continuous and ongoing supervision of your custodial accounts. Our services provide additional investment
opportunities among stocks, bonds, mutual funds, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), Real Estate Investment
Trusts (REITs), options, and additional securities.
Financial Planning and Consulting Services:
We provide various financial planning and consulting services that find ways to help you understand your
overall financial situation and help you set financial objectives. We accomplish this by helping you review
your financial goals, tax planning strategies, asset allocation, risk management, retirement planning, and
other areas and objectives such as budgeting, education planning, cash flow planning, charitable planning,
lines of credit analysis, insurance analysis, business financial planning, mortgage/debt analysis, and real
estate analysis. Generally, such financial planning and consulting services will involve preparing a financial
plan or rendering a financial consultation based on your financial goals and objectives. We will summarize
our services to you in a written plan, which will typically include general recommendations for a course of
action or specific actions to be taken by you. Implementation of the recommendations will be at your
discretion. We provide our financial planning and consulting services on a project basis or as an ongoing,
comprehensive annual plan. Essential Partners will not receive commissions from the sale of insurance or real
estate nor will receive fees or other compensation from the sale of securities or other products or services
recommended in the financial plan or otherwise has a conflict of interest. The client is under no obligation to
act on the investment adviser's or associated person's recommendation. If the client elects to act on any of
the recommendations, the client is under no obligation to effect the transaction through the investment adviser
or the associated person when such person is employed as an agent with a licensed broker-dealer or is
licensed as a broker-dealer or through any associate or affiliate of such person.
TAILORED INVESTMENT ADVISORY SERVICES AND RESTRICTIONS
Essential Partners offers the same suite of services to all our clients; however, specific recommendations and
their implementation are dependent upon the individual client’s current financial situation, such as income,
net worth, and risk tolerance levels.
Our clients may impose restrictions on investing in certain securities or types of securities in accordance with
their values or beliefs. We may request additional information and documentation, such as current
investments, tax returns, insurance policies, and estate plan. We will discuss your investment objectives,
needs, and goals, but you must inform us of any changes. Unless directed by you, we do not independently
verify any information provided to us by you or your attorney, accountant, or other professionals.
WRAP FEE PROGRAMS
Essential Partners does not participate in, recommend, or offer wrap fee programs.
ASSETS UNDER MANAGEMENT
As of December 31, 2022, Essential Partners manages $61,003,000 on a discretionary basis and $347,403,000
on a non-discretionary basis.