Our Story

We’re here to encourage you to take a more active role in the investing of your retirement account, to only invest in what you understand and believe in, and to broaden your diversification.

Why? Because these are the most important steps you can take to assure the financial growth and safety of your retirement account.

How do we do this? By providing upgraded, more flexible, more sensible self-directed IRAs and Solo 401(k)s that allow you to invest in what you want, when you want.

Broad Financial was founded in October 2004 as a private real estate firm focused primarily on the development of residential, retail, and industrial real estate along the East Coast. Then in January 2009, our focus was greatly broadened, reaching far beyond real estate.

Here’s our story:

Although our focus has always been on real estate, our IRAs, like most other taxpayers, were invested exclusively in Wall Street products (stocks, bonds, and mutual funds). Why? Because for years we were told that IRAs are limited to those types of investments. We always wanted to diversify our IRAs into the world of real estate and other non-Wall Street investments, but we went along with what we were told.

That was until the market crashed in October 2008 and our retirement accounts lost nearly 40% of their value. We were then determined to gain control of our IRAs, divest them from Wall Street, and invest them directly into real estate where our returns remained positive. And so we did. In January 2009, we learned how to upgrade and “self-direct” our IRAs, and we successfully re-invested them directly into real estate – an asset class we know well, and believe in.

When boasting to friends and colleagues, they all asked the same question, “Can you upgrade my IRA too?” Why only help friends and colleagues, we thought, let’s help all taxpayers. And so we did. We fine-tuned our ULTIMATE IRA^® and paired it with our ULTIMATE SOLO 401K^® (for self-employed persons) and brought both of them to market.

However, the story didn’t end there.

After 5 years of working with a separate IRA custodian on the west coast, we realized that our product would be optimized by establishing a sister company, Madison Trust Company, to serve as a dedicated custodian and lifelong support system for our customers. The creation of Madison Trust helped to fully deliver our vision for unparalleled customer service and a hassle-free experience for all prospective investors.

We once received the following comment from a customer through a survey:

“I would have liked it so much better if you were also the financial institute handling the IRA and not the the account setting up the LLC.”

This particularly caught our attention because…we are exactly that! Madison handles the IRA, Broad sets up the LLC, and the two share an office and constantly collaborate to ensure the best possible experience for you, the customer.

When you are investing with your retirement money, you want the absolute best expertise and service. We get it. With Broad and Madison operating seamlessly together for your benefit, we are proud to offer the best product in our industry. And we promise to continually ensure that we meet the highest possible standards.

The Broad Financial team is led by its three innovative principals: E. Brian Finkelstein, Mervyn Klein, and Daniel Gleich.

• E. Brian Finkelstein, formerly of Kidder Peabody, UBS, and Cantor Fitzgerald, brings his 25 years of successfully managing risk for several of the world’s largest bond trading firms to Broad Financial.
• Mervyn Klein, formerly of the Read Group and Hudson Development, brings his 20 years of successfully developing millions of square feet of industrial, retail, and residential real estate to Broad Financial.
• Daniel Gleich, formerly of Hudson Development, brings his 15 years of successfully creating and managing the operational side of numerous versatile real estate/ construction management teams to Broad Financial.