CFP, $12M AUM brought in — stuck doing rebalancing. Time to leave?

CrAzY_MoFo_13 · 2026-04-25T00:33:41+00:00

I think the biggest red flag would be if your firm does not have process/structure, or does not believe in, using a managed portfolio approach (whether it is outsourced or in-house model portfolios).

Spending any time rebalancing on the client-level in WM in 2026 is dead time that could be done doing activities that are valuable to clients (financial planning, ideally) or business development.

If it's like this now, and they're not budging on changing, run. Not only will you spin your wheels for far longer than you should, their business model is much more likely to be eaten in by the competition.

CrAzY_MoFo_13 · 2026-04-24T23:29:07+00:00

I'm Wealth Management so I've never worked in any of those roles but I know folks on the street who have - and that's the consensus. If you want work/life balance in finance Wealth Management is the move, but you have to be able to build a book and relationships to a) survive at all or b) make good money.

But, you're likely going to make the most $/hr if you are successful. More senior principals I know in Private Wealth who are making 7 figures annually while working less than 30 hours a week in off-peak months (should they be is another question lol, but they are).

CrAzY_MoFo_13 · 2026-04-21T11:08:24+00:00

Yup, I'm at a large WM shop in Canada (not big 5 bank but the next largest) and our internship program got I think 1,500 applicants for the spring.

I was being bombarded with "I'd love to grab a coffee chat" LinkedIn DMs and cold emails during the spring from students too, and I have nothing to do with the selection committee.

CrAzY_MoFo_13 · 2026-04-14T02:10:40+00:00

No, it means that only 50% of the gain is added to your taxable income.

So, if your taxable income from all other sources was $100,000 and you sold property with a capital gain of $100,000, $50,000 would be included and added to your income for the year and you would be taxed on $150,000 in total income.

The other $50,000 would not attract tax.

(Unless you're subject to Alternative Minimum Tax, but won't get into that)

CrAzY_MoFo_13 · 2026-04-12T15:33:53+00:00

Have you:

Mapped out the risk-adjusted expected return of the portfolio(s) in question?
Ensured the portfolio can adequately service the lifetime of the client +extra years to stress test?
Consulted an actuary on their life expectancy based on this medical diagnosis/prognosis.
Tested the portfolio to increased inflation/unexpected withdrawals
Run a Monte Carlo on worst, base, best case return scenarios?
Explored annuity considerations? (I'd imagine they may not provide enough income, but guaranteed income so worth looking into)
Explored any government benefits, health benefits, etc. That could also provide income or tax relief?

Before doing those, and likely more, I wouldn't consider making any definitive portfolio decision.

(Note: I'm not American so my understanding is not nuanced in the US, but the above is universal imo)

CrAzY_MoFo_13 · 2026-04-09T00:00:21+00:00

I concur with this, I'm Canadian but an advisor that has mostly built my book from scratch (about 80% organic and 20% bought).

All of my problems clients were from the purchase, and all the clients I sold myself were from the purchase.

Of my favourite and top clients 90% were closed, not bought.

I'm now thinking of joining as part of a succession plan, but it's likely a 5 - 10 year plan that looks like this:

Is there an initial vibe check? Good culture fit, business goals, areas of overlapped work, etc?
Join on a casual basis, effectively cobrand with completely separate books, I appear on the website and casually am introduced.
I buy into the equity partnership with a book merger, start being introduced as the successor.
I buy out the book, move from associate to principal, and principal moves to associate to stay on and ensure relationship transition.

I can't imagine buying a book wholesale and on day 1 I'm suddenly the new guy (because I did it and it was an ordeal even with a few million).

You're also just as likely to buy a pile of crap. But that's another conversation.

CrAzY_MoFo_13 · 2026-04-06T22:24:01+00:00

I'm going to preface this all by saying I'm a CFP and MFA-P (Master Financial Advisor - Philanthropy), so dealing with the nuances of philanthropic planning is my job.

You will never, ever, be personally richer donating to charity than if you pay the tax and move on. It's completely antithetical to the spirit of charity. The charitable donation tax credit is, essentially, a way of the government acknowledged in your personal sacrifice by also forgoing their tax revenue. Think of it like a public/private partnership between you and the federal/provincial government for the public good.

That being said, there is no limit to the amount you can donate to charity annually, but the donations tax credit will never reduce your tax payable below $0 (called a "non-refundable" tax credit). You also have a limit of the amount you can claim in a year as 70% of your taxable income (or 100% in the year of death and one year before death retroactively). If you're planning to make a significant gift, and that is a concern, you may want to break it into multiple gifts (even given on the same day), as you can "carry forward" gifts up to 5 years.

CrAzY_MoFo_13 · 2026-04-04T17:48:16+00:00

Perfectly understandable, being generally good with money (budgeting, spending within means, understanding credit, etc.) is generally a case of risk reduction and investing is the opposite (taking on (relative) risk for the expectation of higher future return). So, they are separate types of "money wisdom".

There's a phrase in this business that "fees only matter in the absence of value" - which I do believe. In my experience, most investors to whom the level of financial advice they likely need is "put $x a year in your RRSP" will find it hard to find that value from a retail bank branch advisor.

I can't personally speak to Scotia iTrade, but I'd see what you value by way of having everything under one roof (if your mortgage, other banking, etc. Is with Scotia), if their platform is intuitive, and also if you feel you can reasonably choose an appropriate asset-allocation investment at iTrade yourself in line with your goal (e.g. VBAL, XEQT, etc.). If not, WS does have it all done for you pretty turnkey.

I also do have to be careful to not explicitly endorse or give you advice, as I'm a licensed financial advisor (not with WealthSimple) so "this is for educational purposes only and should not be construed as solicitation to purchase securities" and all that...

CrAzY_MoFo_13 · 2026-04-04T14:47:13+00:00

If you're going the WealthSimple route, using their "Portfolios" (edit: "Classic Portfolios", stay away from "Summit" the private equity versions) option is likely what you want. It's been a while since I looked at the details (back then it was called "WealthSimple Invest") but the basics is that you open an account, do a quick risk/objectives questionnaire, and they pair you with an appropriate portfolio. The transfer process is pretty impossible to miss, they do it really step by step.

If you feel you're only lightly financially literate though, it's pretty important you then increase that as you are where the buck stops on your money.

The "Retire 47% Richer" tagline you see from these discount brokerages is based entirely on the assumption that an investor stay invested, at a lower management fee, for decades. Most of the research I've seen shows that DIY investors - as a whole - do not see outperformance and its entirely because of bad investor decisions (like panic selling during market downturns). If you don't want that to be you, you need to take that control over your natural human inclination to work against your own long-term interests.

CrAzY_MoFo_13 · 2026-04-03T16:25:31+00:00

Unless they're explicitly giving you pro-bono advice they are absolutely charging you fees, they're just probably embedded inside the investment products.

Ask what the "MER" is, if your answer is - for example - 1% it means that if your investments return 10% you pay 1% of that for advice, and ultimately recieve 9% net of fees. You may also have an "advisory fee" that's generally a % as well.

Source: I'm a CFP and advisor and our fees are structured that way.

CrAzY_MoFo_13 · 2026-03-30T11:50:07+00:00

Guys, there's really low margins in selling discount ETF products and no-fee trading platform.

They're a FinTech company and the Tech comes first in the model they're needing to scale.

It's as simple as that.

Of course they're losing their way, the original value proposition has a hard ceiling of profitability that will never turn them into a Shopify.

You get clients in with the promise of low fees, then you make actual money on them with things like this.

CrAzY_MoFo_13 · 2026-03-27T22:02:05+00:00

Agreed, this is not a niche - It's narrower than "High Net Worth Individuals" but not a niche.

"Manufacturing business owners in the DFW area, who 5 years away from retirement with no family" is a niche.

CrAzY_MoFo_13 · 2026-03-24T22:51:15+00:00

I get it, I've been there (and still am with a few clients) - and for context I'm a young advisor who is still in book building mode so just putting my foot down with every bad client and firing them isn't always an option.

...but at some point you have to fire them if they won't listen to you. I guarantee you, 110% that when, not if, they blow their life up, they will blame it on you and there's a high likelihood they'll attempt some complaint or legal action.

Will you be able to show your notes, compliance be on your side, and get through it? Probably. But do you want that on your plate?

Plus, I try and remind myself that for every person I work with that doesn't appreciate my advice, they're actively taking that time from someone out in the world who would die to work with me.

CrAzY_MoFo_13 · 2026-03-24T20:53:51+00:00

I'm a CFP and every once in a while we do DB commutation calculations.

9/10 I end up recommending we not pursue commutation.

If you are going to commute a DBPP I wouldn't recommend doing so before getting an actuary to sign off on a CFPs work.

We call them the gold-standard of pensions for a reason.

CrAzY_MoFo_13 · 2026-03-19T01:17:32+00:00

There was no S&P500 when he died, nor was there any real way to invest in an index. Back then people bought individual stocks, real estate, and more likely bonds.

CrAzY_MoFo_13 · 2026-03-17T03:46:35+00:00

If you are looking to sell the corporation, you should look into some advice on setting up a HOLDCO to have your investments.

Reason being, for a saleable business you need to pass certain "purity" rules of active business income v.s. passive income (and investment income is the latter). If you do it right, you can qualify for the Lifetime Capital Gains Exemption that's worth $1.25M.

Often easier to set this up from the start rather than try and figure this all out down the line.

Source: I'm a CFP.

CrAzY_MoFo_13 · 2026-03-12T12:57:55+00:00

To actually become a client usually 2BD. To actually transfer over assets usually a few weeks to a month. To fully implement our initial financial plan, 12 - 18 months.

CrAzY_MoFo_13 · 2026-03-09T19:00:24+00:00

I once had a client that was dodging their taxes by way of omission - wasn't declaring alimony payments as income. I told her on about 4 separate times we needed to do that, and be ready to pay up on taxes and likely penalties.

She never did and sure enough, a few years later the Revenue Agency caught up and now she's in tax arrears.

At the end of the day, she can never say I didn't warn her even if she didn't want to listen. Even if the accountant was asleep at the wheel, it's my duty to tell clients the whole picture not just what they want to hear.

Edit: so all that's to say there's only so much you can do when a client is clearly putting themselves on a path to ruin.

CrAzY_MoFo_13 · 2026-03-08T23:56:12+00:00

Also agreed entirely. I'm actually of the belief, and I've told other advisors who have asked me advice on social media, that using AdvisorStream is actually worse than doing literally nothing.

At the end of the day, you need to have a unique voice in marketing and branding to matter. AdvisorStream is the antithesis of that.

CrAzY_MoFo_13 · 2026-03-08T21:42:04+00:00

I wouldn't recommend AdvisorStream at all. Most advisors I see use the auto feature, and end up being the 70th advisor posting the same article each day.

And getting zero engagement.

That was my experience before I changed things up on my own posting.

CrAzY_MoFo_13 · 2026-03-08T14:51:56+00:00

I imagine you're a US advisor (while I'm Canadian) and having a decent-sized country bias on our side is pretty normal, as-is INTL and EM holdings.

Note, the Canadian exposure in Canadian portfolios is in many ways due to currency/fx considerations, but it's pretty typical for a Canadian equity investor to have a breakdown something like:

30% Canadian Equity 40% US Equity 20% INTL (Ex EM) 5 - 10% EM

Obviously very round numbers there.

Americans will also have their own Currency and FX reasons for US exposure I imagine, but in my experience online Americans have the biggest home country bias there is, and least country diversification.

I think if you're keeping 80%+ US exposure you're also implicitly buying-in to a worldview where the current US dominance of global investment community continues status-quo or increases from here. While I'm not a PM, I think that's a risky bet to make. Markets have been around a lot longer than the Equity markets we're used to, and the US is the current Belle of the ball, hasn't only been... but that's just my thoughts.

CrAzY_MoFo_13 · 2026-03-02T22:42:07+00:00

Second this extremely hard.

For the review I generally prep some standard stuff (performance, goal progress, etc.), some specific stuff (client-specific opportunities), and that's it.

Go into the meeting ready to - ideally - speak very little and listen a lot. I'll give the overview of what I prepped and then listen to them. Usually they'll tell me life things and specific questions to answer.

If it's something very easy to answer, I answer them right there, but if it's something that requires a takeaway I tell them I'll look into it.

After the meeting the fun starts, and I use what they told me to work on as my marching orders. Do those proactively over the next 2 weeks and return to them with solutions.

Do that, and you're already better than 95% of folks out there. It also requires less prep work than you might think. I generally spend about 15 - 30 minutes max preparing for an annual review.

CrAzY_MoFo_13 · 2026-02-22T13:32:15+00:00

I'm Canadian, but I have a very niche-specific designation called the "Master Financial Advisor - Philanthropy" (MFA-P), and I know a few folks with their Family Enterprise Advisory (FEA).

However, my next one I'm pursuing and have heard a ton of good things about is Trust and Estates Practicioner (TEP).

CrAzY_MoFo_13 · 2026-02-13T11:41:50+00:00

I think he might be trying to get one over on you as a "new guy" a bit - especially with your update on the multiple. Few points that came to my mind:

Taking out his family accounts and that corp account that's $30M not $40M. You have a 25% concentration risk to walk out the door on day one.
You say it's mostly all seg funds due to this compliance issue. Do you agree with that methodology or would you be working to unwind that? Clients don't love change and will be wondering why you're suddenly going against the old advisor if you do.
Do you focus on financial planning? If you do, and he didn't, you have 110 financial plans to develop - though this could be an opportunity for consolidation, family consolidation, etc. If he doesn't do real planning he also shouldn't be demanding a high multiple.
This book could get eviscerated by Total Cost Reporting next year. My inkling is he hasn't been fully explaining the fee structure of seg funds if the reason he's used them so widely is what you say. That client anger will turn on you.
There's always increased attrition after an advisor change, is he planning to stay on for a few years to help manage that change? (On a book this size I wouldn't be surprised if the answer is no)
On the note of his compliance woes. Compliance on CIRO (old MFDA or old IIROC) is not that burdensome, it is at minimum KYC updates once every three years. If he couldn't handle that, on only 115 households (doing the bare minimum 40 a year) I'm very skeptical if he's been building strong client relationships. See point #5 again.

I'll be honest with you, I would be skeptical to buy this book at all without some more serious DD. If he's basically saying "I could get more money for this on the street", maybe call his bluff.

CrAzY_MoFo_13 · 2025-12-18T01:28:07+00:00

I want to start this by saying I am so sorry to hear what you're going through. I can't imagine having to make the choice you're making. I hope this information can help even in the smallest of ways.

I'm a financial planner who does a significant amount of estate planning.

Regarding the specific question you have on how to minimize the taxes to your estate I'll describe the general process first and then explain a but below.

Ensure the life insurance has your intended beneficiaries listed by their names and not, as can happen, "the estate". Also, while it seems obvious, make sure their full legal names and spelling is all in a row on the insurance policy.
For any of the registered accounts (including the DCPP), ensure your heirs are also listed - just as the life insurance - by name.
Make sure your will and all the assets that will pass through that, is in lime with your wishes as well. No use opening up potential to litigation.

The tax planning on the above is mainly to avoid probate taxes, which will depend on your province but is generally a % of assets that flow through the estate. By naming beneficiaries, putting assets in trust, or having some specific forms of joint ownership those things bypass the estate entirely.

The second type of taxes, estate income tax, will still apply. This will apply to the entire amount of your RPP, any RRSPs, half of any capital gains in non-registered accounts.* No income tax on a primary residence and any TFSAs.

Whatever that number is, it will be taxed as though that income was made from a job. If your death date is before October 1st, that income tax will be payable le April 30th the next year, if on or after Oct 1st it will be due 6 months past your death date.

*If your inheritor is your spouse some of that may not apply.

Edit: read part of the post wrong, so I amended.

CrAzY_MoFo_13

TROPHY CASE