Equity Institutional Review

Equity Institutional is not only one of the top IRA custodial services currently doing business today; they are also part of the Equity Trust Company, which is a trusted business in the financial space. At this time, this IRA custodian has over $12 billion in assets under management and more than 130,000 clients. They are a huge organization that has professional financial partnerships with over 10,000 firms.

For full transparency, my personal Self Directed IRA account is with Equity Institutional.

Besides being a dominant force in the self-directed IRA space, they also possess specialties in numerous types of investments including real estate, hedge funds, and managed futures. In 1983, this financial powerhouse received notice that they were qualified to serve as a non-bank IRA, and during the economic downturn they thrived and acquired Sterling Trust Company in 2009.

The Management at Equity Institutional

This company was originally founded by Richard Desich in 1974, with more than 35 years of experience in the industry as a power player in the self-directed IRA space. He not only founded this organization but he also founded Retirement Education Group. And one of his sons, Richard A. Desich, was the original founder of Equity Trust Company. Richard’s son Jeffrey Desich is the current CEO of Equity Institutional, and the company has a leadership page on their website if you’d like to learn even more information about their management team.

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Products & Prices from Equity Institutional

The company works diligently to specialize in alternative investment types including Flex IRAs, Roth IRAs, and Traditional IRAs as well as precious metals IRAs. They can help customers initiate 401(k) rollovers and provide their business partners and clients with non-qualified and qualified custodial accounts for businesses and individuals alike.

Additionally, Equity Institutional is fully capable of providing even more services to mutual fund companies, investment firms, registered investment advisors, banks, and other financial firms of this type. Their flat rate fee is $225 per year, and this includes the precious metal storage fee and annual renewal fee combined.

According to their schedule of fees for precious metals IRAs, their fee structure works as follows:

  • Setup fees – a one-time charge of $50
  • Annual fee – $75 per year billed each January
  • Precious metals storage fee – $150 per year billed each January

Clearly, it doesn’t matter if you have $10 million worth of precious metals or $10,000 worth of precious metals with this custodial service because they charge the same storage and renewal fees no matter how big or small your account size is. Other custodians like to charge fees on a sliding scale, which means you’ll spend a lot more money the bigger your account grows. That is not the case with Equity Institutional because they are willing to provide their services at a fair price to all of their customers no matter how big or how small their account sizes happen to be.

Besides the standard setup and annual fees, just like any other IRA custodian they will have other fees involved with their services. You could potentially have to pay termination fees, wire transfer fees, late fees, and transaction fees as well. Visit their website and read their fee schedule page to learn more.

Although everything mentioned above is accurate, you may actually get a discount during your first year because oftentimes they are willing to waive your first year’s annual fee when you set up your account through Regal Assets, a well-respected gold IRA company. As a matter of fact, Regal Assets takes care of their customers so well that they are willing to pay the first three years’ worth of storage and administration fees on your behalf in certain situations, which will save you $225 per year for the first three years.

Equity Institutional Contact Information

Equity Institutional Important Website Pages

  • Investing in precious metals IRA – this page describes in full detail about the benefits of investing using Equity Institutional for precious metals IRA storage purposes.
  • Precious metals retirement account storage – they have a detailed PDF that teaches you everything you need to know about retirement accounts and precious metals storage.
  • Types of accounts – this page tells you about the different types of accounts offered by Equity Institutional.

Never Forget about the Competition Prior to Investing

According to many of the best financial advisors in the world today, they believe you should allocate roughly 5 to 40% of your retirement portfolio to investing in precious metals. They make this recommendation because it seems like another recession is on the horizon, and you should definitely protect a portion of your capital from a devalued US dollar, inflation, and other negative sentiments.

On top of that, the price of gold is steadily rising during this tough economic environment. So buying precious metals now is a healthy way to boost your overall retirement portfolio and hedge your bets against other negative investments you may have at this time. By opening a self-directed IRA, you’ll have the freedom to choose the type of investments that you’d like to make including alternative investments like buying precious metals, Bitcoin, real estate, and other nontraditional options.

Not all self-directed IRAs are created equally, and the process isn’t always as easy and straightforward as it may seem. You do not want to end up spending more for administration fees, setup fees, and other unnecessary fees during this process. You should focus on choosing the best precious metals companies and the top IRA custodians to work with to make your buying decision much easier. We’ve researched and reviewed many of the top gold companies and custodians, so pay attention to our suggestions to cut costs and limit fees.

Should You Use Equity Institutional?

After reviewing more than 40 IRA custodians and administrators, I’ve set up an account with them.  I have to disclose this legally, and this was the first self-directed investment account I set up around age 36.  (As I’m in my low 40’s now, here are things that I liked about them and why I went with them for a self-directed account.)

  • One-time low-cost set up fee
  • Low-priced administration fees
  • Low-priced annual storage fees
  • Preferred depository
  • Excellent industry reputation and presence

Advantages of Equity Institutional

  • They have a strategic partnership with Regal Assets, who we consider the best gold IRA company in business today.
  • Besides their relationship with Regal Assets, they have great working relationships with a plethora of financial advisors, investment firms, bullion dealers, gold brokers, and more which makes it easy for their clients to purchase precious metals for their alternative IRA accounts.
  • They charge low flat fees for renewal and storage whether you have a small dollar amount or a large high dollar amount in your account.
  • They have strategic partnerships with more than 10,000 different financial professionals throughout the world.

Disadvantage of Equity Institutional

  • Their precious metals storage fee costs $150 annually, which isn’t currently the cheapest available price.

A Summary of Equity Institutional

This company has more than $12 billion in managed assets, 130,000 customers, and they have strategic partnerships with more than 10,000 professionals in the financial business world. They are a trusted IRA custodian who specializes in real estate, hedge funds, managed futures, and other financial investments.

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Tim Schmidt

About 

Tim Schmidt is an Entrepreneur who has covered retirement investing since 2012. He started IRA Investing to share his expertise in using his Self-Directed IRA for alternative investments. His views on retirement investing have been highlighted in USA Today, Business Insider, Tech Times, and more. He invested with Goldco.