Wilbanks, Smith & Thomas Asset Management, LLC was founded in 1990 and is located at 150 West Main
Street, Suite 1700, Norfolk, Virginia 23510. WST is privately owned by its principals. All operational and
investment decisions are made by the firm’s principals. We are one of the oldest and largest independent
investment advisors in Southeastern Virginia. WST’s Investment Committee has a combined experience of
over 150 years in the investment management industry.
WST provides investment services for individuals, pension and profit sharing plans, corporations, Taft
Hartley organizations, municipalities, bank trust departments, trust companies, insurance companies,
foundations and endowments.
In addition, WST offers advisory services through a platform of investment strategies that focus on
improving risk-adjusted return through rules-based, risk-managed investment frameworks that rely on
complex quantitative modeling and are executed primarily through Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) and in
some cases mutual funds. WST Capital Management (“WSTCM”), a division of WST, oversees
quantitative research and manages these rules-based strategies. Our website (www.wstcm.com) focuses
solely on the strategies and solutions offered by the WSTCM division. Depending upon the particular
investment objectives and risk tolerance of a client, WST may utilize one or more or all of the strategies in
an effort to achieve the client’s investment objectives and, depending upon what we may consider adverse
market conditions, we may, in our discretion, fully invest a client’s assets in this service in money market
funds, gold funds or investment grade fixed income funds as a defensive strategy. These strategies involve
various levels of risk. First, we may not be successful in implementing the strategy thus resulting in
investment losses and, second, the particular strategy may not work as planned with the potential for
missing out on beneficial movements in price due to an error in timing.
The long-term objective of each WST Capital Management strategy is to achieve risk-adjusted returns that
exceed those of comparable buy-and-hold strategies, primarily by reducing the experience of volatility that
affects markets. Certain strategies incorporate various sub-strategies that generate buy/ sell signals based on
a range of factors that comprise trends we believe are correlated
to asset class performance. The models are
designed to issue signals based on each strategy and attempts to limit losses during declining markets and to
participate in rising markets. The strategies shift investments among money market funds and multiple asset
classes through investments in actively managed and/or passive equity and fixed income mutual funds or
exchange traded funds. Portfolio allocations may be rebalanced at WST's discretion. Each of the WST
Capital Management strategies have varying degrees of investment risk that are unique to that particular
strategy as disclosed to clients via the WST Capital Management marketing presentations.
Wilbanks, Smith & Thomas Asset Management, LLC acts as general partner and investment adviser to
private funds. Other expenses may be incurred by the private funds and its limited partners such as the costs
of buying and selling securities, audits, compliance and other administrative fees. Some of our employees
and principals may also be investors in these entities. This may present a conflict of interest which we
address by full and fair disclosure to our clients.
Retirement Rollovers Conflict of Interest: When we provide investment advice to you regarding your
retirement plan account or individual retirement account, we are fiduciaries within the meaning of Title I of
the Employee Retirement Income Security Act and/or the Internal Revenue Code, as applicable, which are
laws governing retirement accounts. The way we make money creates some conflicts with your interests, so
we operate under a special rule that requires us to act in your best interest and not put our interest ahead of
yours. Under this special rule’s provisions, we must:
• Meet a professional standard of care when making investment recommendations (give prudent
advice);
• Never put our financial interests ahead of yours when making recommendations (give loyal advice);
• Avoid misleading statements about conflicts of interest, fees, and investments;
• Follow policies and procedures designed to ensure that we give advice that is in your best interest;
and
• Charge no more than is reasonable for our services.
The principal owners of WST are Wayne Wilbanks, who is President, Thomas Investment Properties,
LLC. The amount of client assets we manage as of December 31, 2023, is $190,845,217 on a discretionary
basis.