Sunesis Advisors, L.L.C. (CRD # 159114) (Sunesis) is registered as an investment adviser
with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. Sunesis is based in Kansas
and is organized as a Limited Liability Company under the laws of the State of Kansas. The
firm was formed in 2011.
Sunesis’s principal office and place of business is located at 6750 West 93rd St., Suite 100,
Overland Park, KS 66212. Regular business hours are from 9:00am to 5:00pm Monday
through Friday. The firm can be contacted by phone at (913) 815-4460 and by fax at
(913) 815-4466.
Chad Battison is the firm’s majority owner and serves as the firm’s Chief Compliance
Officer.
As of December 31, 2023, the firm managed approximately $1,211,340,126 in assets,
$1,101,366,543 of which was managed on a discretionary basis, and $109,973,583 of which
was managed on a non-discretionary basis.
SERVICES
Sunesis operates primarily as a family office for our clients. As such we assist with
planning, managing, and execution of strategies and solutions across a broad spectrum of
our clients’ financial affairs, including cash flow requirements, investments, taxes, estate
plans, closely-held businesses, philanthropy, and family governance matters.
Because Sunesis is a registered investment adviser, we are required to meet certain
fiduciary standards when providing investment advice to clients. Additionally, when we
provide investment advice related to individual retirement accounts, we are considered
fiduciaries within the meaning of Title I of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act
and/or the Internal Revenue Code, as applicable, which are laws governing retirement
accounts. As such, we are required to act in your best interest and not put our interest
ahead of yours. Our clients however are under no obligation to use services recommended
by our associated persons. Furthermore, we believe that our recommendations are in the
best interests of our clients and are consistent with our clients’ needs.
PlanningandCoordination–Sunesis takes a holistic approach to financial planning,
developing strategies and plans that are intended to accomplish the clients’ goals with
respect to estate, tax planning, asset protection, retirement planning, and other areas.
Sunesis works with the client and their other advisors to not only fully understand their
financial situation and objectives, but to also manage the implementation and execution of
the plans.
Estate Planning - We review and coordinate clients’ estate and wealth transfer
objectives. In addition, we assess asset protection and governance structure for
investment assets, business succession planning, insurance coverage (life, long-term
care, etc.), and other financial needs of an overall family estate plan.
Tax Compliance – Although Sunesis does not prepare tax returns, we do help
coordinate the preparation of annual federal and state income tax returns,
estimated tax vouchers, extensions, and other tax reports as needed. We also collect
and distribute information to clients’ tax preparers, and work with those
professionals to facilitate efficient and accurate returns.
Consolidated Reporting – Sunesis can prepare consolidated reports for clients to
include balance sheets, cash flow reports and consolidated investment reports so
that clients can view all of their holdings/managers together. We will also help
clients with performance reporting and other administrative
reporting for private
foundations when needed.
Other Family Office Services: From time to time, clients may engage Sunesis to
provide assistance in analyzing new business ventures, investments in operating
companies, gifts to charitable organizations, etc. Further, clients may engage
Sunesis to perform various administrative functions on their behalf such as
managing payroll for household employees, assisting in property management
activities, and cash management.
InvestmentManagementandReporting:
Non‐DiscretionaryServices‐
Sunesis may also be engaged to manage and report on client assets. The services
performed include financial planning, and analysis of the client’s asset allocation, outside
investment managers and or their products. Sunesis’ planning will involve the estimation
of the client’s current cash needs as well as those needs in the future. Asset allocations will
be evaluated at the client and account level. In some cases, Sunesis will also advise on the
client’s asset location, product selection, and portfolio construction. We may also offer our
insights on how securities or products fit in the overall portfolio. This can include
recommendations on changing a product’s asset location as well as gain avoidance and tax
loss harvesting opportunities. In the above instance we will not have trading discretion
over the portfolios.
DiscretionaryServices‐
Where clients engage us to act with full discretionary authority, we will contract with
outside investment managers to purchase or dispose of products and create proprietary
solutions to meet certain client needs. Sunesis will be responsible for overseeing the
activities of the managers. In some cases this will be a pure oversight function, while in
other cases we will purchase model portfolios from managers and implement trades on the
client’s behalf. We will manage the risk, taxes and trading activity of the overall portfolio
and control these attributes directly.
Asset Allocation – Sunesis will request, accumulate, and analyze client financial
information in order to determine the client’s current assets and liabilities. From
this information Sunesis will project the client’s coverage ratio (ratio of assets to
liabilities). This information is coupled with a process to produce an Investment
Policy Statement and an initial asset allocation. This information will drive the
broad decisions on the amount of cash flow that will be required and the total and
active risk that will be accepted in the client’s total and individual portfolios.
Manager and Product Selection – Sunesis will work with an array of contracted
sources to assemble managers and or products that can fulfill a particular client
mandate. Sunesis will also run analytics on managers in combination to see what
their sources of risk and return appear to be. The overall process attempts to find
managers/products that would be expected to deliver skill in the future. Sunesis
will also monitor the performance of these managers going forward.
Overlay Management – In addition to the services mentioned above, Sunesis may
also take an active role by retaining or in certain circumstances acting as Overlay
Manager. This role may even be expanded into creating passive or semi-passive
portfolios that will be used in conjunction with the Active Managers/Products to
actively control taxes as well as total and active risk.