Background
Fortis Capital Management LLC (“Fortis”, the “firm,” the “company,” “we,” “our,” or “us”) is a
Washington state Limited Liability Company formed in 2014. Fortis is wholly-owned by Fortis Holdings
LLC, which also owns the related entities described in Item 10. Michael Boroughs, Paul Misleh and
James Rudolf are the elected managers of Fortis Holdings, as well as the elected managers of Fortis.
There is no natural person who owns more than 25% of Fortis, either directly or indirectly.
Services
We are a financial advisory company that provides financial planning and investment management
services. We service private individuals, families, businesses, trusts, foundations, charities and private
funds.
We offer financial planning services to assist individuals and families with planning for their financial
future and building their wealth. Our planning services occasionally employ third-party software to
provide account aggregation, scenario analysis and mobile friendly monitoring. As part of our financial
planning process, if the client is in need of services we don’t offer that are elements of a healthy financial
plan, then we will assist the client in engaging another professional who can provide those services. We
prefer to take the lead in interacting with the other service providers (such as the estate planning attorney,
insurance broker, mortgage broker, CPA, etc.) in order to ensure the client’s long-term objectives are
being fulfilled and to minimize the workload on the client.
As part of the financial planning process, we can also act as insurance producers for some types of life,
disability and long-term care lines of insurance.
We build clients’ portfolios primarily with the common stock of domestic and foreign companies, or with
low-cost exchange traded funds (“ETFs”), or with mutual funds that meet our investment and allocation
criteria. However, our investment recommendations are not limited only to common stocks and ETFs.
We offer advice and make investment recommendations on a wide range of investments, including but
not limited to bonds, private placements, options, other securities and real estate.
We utilize both active and passive investment management strategies. Our active strategies are typically
implemented uniformly across the client base for those clients for whom it is suitable and who decide to
invest in those strategies. We will, however, tailor the implementation of the strategy in light of a client’s
specific needs and risk tolerance, where necessary. In certain circumstances, it may make sense for us to
allocate a client’s assets across multiple strategies (from both active to passive). In this situation we
typically set up separate brokerage accounts for the client representing each strategy employed. We think
this provides greater transparency to the client and to the firm, especially with respect to performance
reporting.
See Item 8 for more details on the various strategies offered by us to our Clients.
While we maintain a small number of non-discretionary accounts, the vast majority of the accounts
within our strategies are managed on a discretionary basis.
We do not participate in wrap fee programs. We receive no commissions from selling securities nor do we
receive a portion of the transaction fees charged by the broker/dealer (see Item 12 regarding Brokerage
practices).
We also provide investment management services to the Glacier Peak U.S. Value Fund L.P. (“GPU”) (the
“Fund”).
The objective of GPU is to realize capital appreciation by utilizing an opportunisticequity approach by
investing and trading in securities across multiple sectors, industries and countries. Alongside value, the
Fund incorporates momentum and trend-following
to improve odds of success as well as a stop loss
discipline to limit losses. As the Investment Manager to the Fund, we will engage in all activities and
transactions as the General Partner may deem reasonably necessary, advisable or incidental in connection
with our responsibility to GPU. We primarily execute the investment objective by investing in:
• Publicly traded equities and ETFs
• Options: selling and buying calls and puts, both covered and uncovered
However, there are no restrictions on GPU’s investments. Additionally, given the nature of using stop
losses and trend-following criteria, the exposure within the Fund can vary from a highly liquid status to a
fully invested or highly leveraged status depending on market conditions and investment selections.
Please see Item 8 below for additional detail on strategies and risks related to the Fund.
Glacier Peak Capital LLC (“GPC”) is a sister company to Fortis, managed by the same people, and is the
General Partner to GPU.
Please see the private offering memorandum and additional agreements (collectively, the “Offering
Materials”) for specific details on the Fund. Fund interests are offered only to investors who meet
certain qualifications (they must be both “accredited” as defined in Rule 501 of Regulation D and
“qualified clients” as defined under Rule 205-3 of the Investment Advisers Act of 1940), and other
requirements detailed in the Offering Materials. We have no discretionary authority to purchase Fund
interest with client assets under our management; clients must specifically subscribe for Fund interests
and those subscriptions must be accepted by the Fund.
As is generally the case with private funds, investors in the Fund are not permitted to place restrictions on
Fortis as the Fund’s advisor. As the Fund’s investment advisor, we are obligated to follow the investment
objectives of the Fund as a whole (as described in the Offering Materials).
As part of our advisory services, we do recommend life insurance products, where appropriate for the
client. If the client chooses to accept our recommendation and purchase insurance through us, we will
receive usual and customary commissions on those transactions (see Item 5, below). We currently
recommend life and disability products primarily offered through MassMutual Life Insurance Company,
which we believe are competitive with other products in the marketplace. Though other products are
available through other carriers which may have better terms or lower premiums, we choose to keep our
offerings simple and recommend only MassMutual or its insurance brokerage platform, Ash Brokerage.
As an investment advisor we are a fiduciary to all of our clients. We are also deemed a “fiduciary” under
ERISA and/or the Internal Revenue Code with respect to our investment advisory recommendations and
discretionary asset management provided to Retirement Investors. “Retirement Investor” is defined as a
participant or beneficiary of a retirement plan or a beneficial owner of an Individual Retirement Account
(IRA). In recommending that any client roll over retirement plan assets to our management, we have a
conflict of interest, to the extent the rollover will result in our managing additional assets subject to our
management fee. Before making any such recommendation, we review the client’s existing investment
options, fees and expenses, and overall investment objectives. We only make the recommendation once
we’ve determined that doing so is in the client’s best interest.
Assets Under Management
As of December 31, 2023, we have approximately $493.7 million in discretionary assets under management
and approximately $3.1 million in non-discretionary assets under management.