Price Waterhouse to Offer Financial Planning Service

Price Waterhouse said Wednesday that it will register an affiliate as an investment adviser with the Securities and Exchange Commission, becoming the first Big Eight accounting firm to do so and signaling the growing presence of accounting firms in the lucrative field of financial planning.

The filing, expected to be made today, will allow Price Waterhouse to provide and advertise financial planning as a separate service apart from its traditional tax planning and accounting services. Status as an investment adviser also will allow it to provide certain kinds of advice, such as recommendations of money managers and stockbrokers, without limitation.

The nation’s fifth-largest accounting firm, like many others, has offered financial planning for some time. But, lacking standing as an investment adviser, it could provide the advice only if it was “incidental” to its tax planning and accounting services.

“This frees us to feature investment advice” as a separate service “in the way we want to,” said Stanley H. Breitbard, Los Angeles-based national director of executive financial services for Price Waterhouse. The firm plans to expand the service and promote it more aggressively, he said.

Other accounting firms are expected to follow suit with similar filings. New York-based Seidman & Seidman/BDO, which ranks about 10th among U.S. accounting firms, filed for investment adviser status more than a year ago and has been operating a separate financial planning affiliate.

“Accounting firms are seeing a growing amount of consumer interest for financial planning services,” said Hubert L. Harris, president of the International Assn. for Financial Planning, a trade group.

Harris applauded the Price Waterhouse filing, saying it would put the accounting firm on the “same level playing field” as financial planners. Status as an investment adviser subjects a financial planner to certain regulatory requirements, such as SEC inspections of its finances, and full disclosure to clients of its fees and commissions.

Price Waterhouse said the affiliate that will file for investment adviser status is Price Waterhouse Investment Advisers. It will offer only generic investment advice, largely to affluent corporate executives, about what types of investments to purchase rather than specific recommendations, Breitbard said.