Who we are
Fauchard Investments is a boutique firm focused on improving the financial lives and outcomes of dentists. Based outside of Columbus, OH, our strategy integrates practice and household planning into our own proprietary financial planning tools and processes. We believe that your lifetime of work is only able to translate into a comfortable retirement if the portfolios you worked so hard to build are well structured and suited to your individual circumstances, generating the income you need and providing the security you want. That level of customization is hard to achieve using turn-key investment models packed with firm-owned products and funds. That is why custom portfolio construction using the fundamental units of markets, individual stocks and bonds, is central to Fauchard’s retirement income focused portfolio construction process.
As a fee-only firm that never earns commissions or sells products, we are here to help you navigate the world of insurance as efficiently as possible, trying to minimize your fees along the way. In our view, insurance is never an investment. It is a sometimes essential hedge when the cost of the risk is unacceptable. We believe strong-income professions like dentistry offer ample opportunity to self-insure so more money stays with you and less goes into the pockets of an insurance salesman.
How we are built
Fauchard is completely independent, unaffiliated with brokerage firms, referral networks, or insurance providers. We are able to invest your money in whatever way we think is best for your circumstances; we don’t have to answer to a distant investment committee that doesn’t understand your needs.
We aren’t incentivized to refer you to a particular professional. You can be assured that any accountants, lawyers, transition specialists, or insurance providers we help you vet aren’t just passing referrals back to us in return; we will never accept a quid-pro-quo relationship with other professionals. This way we can help you seek out what we judge to be the most cost-effective, highest quality professional services whether they’re local or on the other side of the country. We have built our firm from the ground up to work for our clients, and to put their interest first.
Who we hire and how our training is different
We are very particular on who we invite to join our team; we look for intelligent, capable, and dynamic thinkers, often scouting industries outside finance altogether. We place great emphasis on intensive training and development in our investment and planning philosophies and priorities.
Our first-principles approach emphasizes fluency in investment management, portfolio allocations, economics, market history, tax-efficiency, trading, the value of individual stocks and bonds, and the potential pitfalls of the myriads of complicated financial and insurance products that dominate the wealth management industry.
Why Fauchard was Founded
Alexander Shoker founded Fauchard Investments to serve dentists based on the belief that niche specialization produces better outcomes for clients and enables deeper, more specialized knowledge and training from advisors.
Why dentists? While co-managing $400 million at his previous firm, where by the end of his tenure he was primarily responsible for stock and bond trading, investment plan execution, portfolio construction and maintenance, and new investment selection, dentists represented some of our best clients. Alex felt dentists would benefit from something more purpose-built for their unique financial lives and retirement paths.
Having worked as a dentist doesn’t change many of our portfolio management decisions once you’re retired. Perhaps your accounts are distributed a little differently, tweaking our tax-efficiency considerations, but otherwise we are managing your portfolio the same as any other professional class. It’s the course corrections made in the years leading up to and immediately after retirement that can make all the difference for a practicing dentist.
Contact us today to better understand what that might look like for you.
About the Founder
Alexander Shoker lives in Powell, OH with his wife, four kids, and two dogs. Although he loves trap shooting, traveling, and going to the beach, spare time primarily goes towards his wife and four kids.
Common questions
Do you only serve dentists?
Although Fauchard Investments works primarily with dentists and their families, we will consider anyone who meets our net worth guideline.
Where are you located?
The firm is based in Powell, Ohio, near Columbus.
Where are your clients located?
We will work with clients nationwide. In some cases we will need to complete a state registration or notice filing before we begin working together, and we are happy to do so.
Is there an account minimum?
No. We apply a $1 million net worth guideline, and we waive it for actively practicing dentists and dental specialists, and for children of existing clients.
Where are my assets actually held?
Our primary custodian is Charles Schwab, though as an independent adviser we continue to evaluate custodian options for our clients.
Do you sell insurance products?
No. Fauchard Investments does not sell, place, or earn commissions on insurance products of any kind. The firm advises clients on insurance needs and helps evaluate the appropriateness of coverage being proposed by others.
Are you affiliated with Pierre Fauchard?
No. Pierre Fauchard died in France in 1761; we are neither French nor from the 1700s. The firm is named in his honor.
Our namesake
Who was Pierre Fauchard?
Pierre Fauchard (1678–1761) was a French surgeon, and the man who made dentistry a profession.
In 1728 he published Le Chirurgien Dentiste, the first book to set dentistry out as a complete field. It described the anatomy and the diseases of the mouth, the instruments, the operative techniques, and the prosthetics, and it did something more consequential than any single technique in it: it rejected the belief that decay was caused by a “tooth worm” and pointed instead at sugar. He wrote down what worked, argued from what he had observed, and published it openly at a time when practitioners guarded their methods as trade secrets.
That openness gave dentistry a literature, a shared body of knowledge, and its place among the medical professions, where it has stayed ever since.
Fauchard Investments is named in his honor.
See where you stand
Start with a conversation about your practice and the retirement your portfolio is building.