KAWG&F Financial Planning Group

The investment committee is led by founding principal Lawrence K. Kayne, with Brenda K. Wiederhold and senior tax advisors contributing to allocation design. Because the firm evolved from a CPA practice, investment decisions are filtered through an after-tax lens that involves multiple in-house disciplines, not just a standalone investment team.

The firm sources primarily through professional networks built across four decades in Baltimore and the mid-Atlantic. Relationships with regional banks, law firms, and middle-market private-credit sponsors generate deal flow. It does not use competitive auction processes or external placement agents, consistent with its CPA-rooted, referral-based culture.

KAWG&F operates as a multi-family office serving a concentrated group of families — many with overlapping professional-services backgrounds. It is not a single-family office tied to one source of wealth, nor does it operate as a commercial wealth-management platform with a broad retail client base.

The firm executes both direct deals — particularly in private credit and real estate — and selective commitments to external funds, primarily in areas that complement its tax-planning expertise. Direct co-investments often arise from the same networks that feed its credit pipeline.

The firm has no publicly stated exclusion list, but its portfolio consistently avoids early-stage venture capital, speculative technology, and strategies with near-term tax inefficiency. Its structure and CPA heritage steer allocations toward cash-flowing, tax-advantaged asset classes.

Client wealth largely originates from exits of professional-services firms, including accounting, legal, and consulting practices, as well as multi-generational family capital concentrated in the mid-Atlantic region. The firm does not disclose individual family names or liquidity events, in keeping with its private, non-institutional posture.

No separate philanthropic foundation is publicly branded under the KAWG&F name. Tax-advantaged charitable planning — including donor-advised funds and private foundation formation — is delivered as an integrated part of its core estate and wealth-structuring practice rather than through a standalone foundation.