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Baseball great Delgado teams up with experts to launch financial advisory firm

Retired baseball star Carlos Delgado

When Aguadilla native and two-time major-league all-star baseball player Carlos Delgado started his athletic career, he had the good fortune of having his parents guide him down the right financial path. However, in his line of business, Delgado, now retired, saw more than his share of his peers reach the pinnacle of wealth and blow it all away on fancy cars and big houses.

With the idea of helping up-and-coming athletes and performers keep a grip on their money, Delgado has teamed up with business advisory firm Scherrer Hernández & Co. to launch Integrated Concierge Financial Services, a company whose mission is to educate and guide that niche customer base toward long-term financial security.

“We want to reach out to those young people to offer them the tools they need to understand their responsibilities off the baseball diamond or the basketball court, as individuals who must pay taxes and save for the future,” said Delgado, during a news conference Wednesday.

“In this process, we want them to learn things like how to manage a budget, the options they have to invest their money and secure their future,” said Delgado, who retired from professional baseball in 2009 after a very successful 17-year career with the Toronto Blue Jays, Florida Marlins and New York Mets.

“I have seen many cases of good people who were unable to cope with important decisions and were affected financially,” Delgado said.

Among the services ICFS offers are: personal accounting, financial guidance, financial records management, tax planning, and wealth preservation.

Ryan Marín, chief operating officer of ICFS

“Our mission is to help all those athletes plan for retirement by asissting them in managing their finances, so they can achieve that financial security that we all desire and that is so necessary today,” said Ryan Marín, chief operating officer of ICFS.

While Delgado and Marín will be the “faces” of the business, the latter explained that they will work with Scherrer Hernández’s portfolio of resources both on and off the island to guide their clients through a one-on-one service. The fees that individual clients will pay will depend on the services they need and opt-in for, Marín said.

Scherrer Hernández has been Delgado’s financial advisory firm for more than a decade, which led to the new venture.

“They helped me in the financial decision-making process that we hope will benefit me for the rest of my life. Athletes have a short revenue-generating window and we want them to be able to maintain their wealth so they can have their stuff, but also enjoy it during their retirement,” Delgado said.

The same goes for performers, artists and singers, who may need someone to help them look out for the income they generate — which in that business is often a windfall that comes quickly.

“We don’t want to see any more news stories about athletes or artists who seek bankruptcy protection after their careers are over,” Delgado said.

Author Details
Author Details
Business reporter with 30 years of experience writing for weekly and daily newspapers, as well as trade publications in Puerto Rico. My list of former employers includes Caribbean Business, The San Juan Star, and the Puerto Rico Daily Sun, among others. My areas of expertise include telecommunications, technology, retail, agriculture, tourism, banking and most other segments of Puerto Rico’s economy.
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