Thinking of Selling Your Business? Sell Smart
Smart entrepreneurs look far beyond financials. “The difference between great people and everyone else is that great people create their lives actively, while everyone else is created by their lives, passively waiting to see where life takes them next,” Michael E. Gerber wrote in his book, The E Myth. The sentiment applies to entrepreneurs approaching […]
Six Best Practices to Keep Your Business Sale-Ready
How hot is your company? Would you give it a solid 10 out of 10? What rating would others give it? Even if selling your company is the furthest thing from your mind, assessing its attractiveness and saleability should be a regular priority—a way to make sure you’re optimizing your resources and your balance sheet. […]
The Advantages of Individual Securities Over Mutual Funds
Individual securities offer powerful advantages for ultra-high-net-worth investors. If you’ve been investing for a while, at some point you were probably told that mutual funds were not only an easy answer, but also a wise one, promising a strong return with minimal effort and monitoring. This advice is not wrong, but it doesn’t apply to everyone. After […]
Want a Tax-Efficient Portfolio? Focus on These 3 Areas
Deploying tax-efficient strategies within an investment portfolio is one of the most critical roles of a financial advisor, especially because many investment managers focus on pretax investment returns. By emphasizing after-tax returns, advisors may better meet the needs of their high-net-worth clients—particularly in high-tax states. Here are three key areas to focus on to improve after-tax returns: […]
Keys for Maximizing After-Tax Returns: 4 Strategic Elements for Income Generation
In a world full of financial uncertainties, tax-sensitivity is one aspect of investing that you can control. At Whittier Trust, we have been laser-focused on after-tax returns—the dollars you keep—since the early 1980s. That focus has become a key differentiator and one of the many reasons clients tend to stay with Whittier from one generation to the […]
Strategic Wealth Planning for UHNWIs for the Second Trump Administration
The new year will present challenges and opportunities for ultra-high-net-worth individuals as they re-evaluate their portfolios and long-term financial plans in light of President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming administration. Strong partnerships between UHNW clients and their advisors will be essential during this transition and the ensuing four years. Proactive planning will be key, especially given potential […]
The Price and Value of Assets
In investing, “value” is a word that’s used often but rarely understood in depth. It is not just a price tag, an item on a balance sheet, or a line on a chart. Rather, value is a complex blend of trust, expectation, and the interplay between certainty and speculation. The recent surge in gold prices to […]
Wealth Planning as a Competitive Advantage
How smart entrepreneurs future-proof their legacy. Most entrepreneurs who have built a corporation to a valuation in the hundreds of millions (or higher) will tell you about a beginning filled with hard work, sleepless nights and worry over whether or not their business would survive. We work with many family businesses that are now worth […]
Separating Signal from Noise
Staying focused on what drives long-term returns. Filtering the Noise Markets are in a constant state of change—it’s a natural characteristic of a dynamic, evolving economy. With that change often comes a steady stream of headlines, opinions, and predictions. From shifting policies to economic speculation, the volume of commentary can feel overwhelming. But amid the […]
Don’t Forget Fido: How to Help Clients Include Pet Care in Estate Plans
Financial planners are charged with protecting the things that matter most to their clients — and those things often include pets. June is National Pet Preparedness Month, a time for making sure pets are incorporated into emergency plans. It presents a perfect opportunity for advisors and planners to connect with pet-owning clients to help them plan for […]