Current to August 28, 2026
To choose a wealth manager after selling your business, look for a firm that is independent, uses open architecture, and can invest across all major asset classes rather than public stocks alone; then, before you hire, ask about ownership, open architecture, breadth beyond stocks, fees and conflicts, and how your plan is built.
- Favour an independent, ideally employee-owned firm whose advice is not tied to selling in-house product.
- Look for open architecture, meaning access to best-in-class managers from across the whole market.
- Confirm real capability across fixed income, private markets, real assets, and alternatives, not stocks alone.
- Before hiring, ask how the advisor is paid, what they cannot offer you, and how they coordinate with your deal, tax, and legal advisors.
- Selling a business converts one concentrated, illiquid asset into liquid capital that now needs a diversified plan.
- The post-sale moment matters because concentration risk does not disappear at closing, it changes form.
- If your proceeds include buyer shares or an earnout, part of your wealth may still be tied to one company.
- Independence reduces the conflict between advice and in-house product distribution.
- Open architecture is the practical test of independence, meaning access across the market rather than a proprietary shelf.
- Breadth across asset classes matters because different assets respond differently to the same market shock.
- The questions you ask before hiring reveal incentives, breadth, and process more reliably than a performance chart.
- Ask how the advisor is paid, and get conflicts and any referral arrangements in writing.
- The right advisor coordinates with the deal, tax, and legal team already around your exit.
Why the Moment After a Sale Is Different
Before the sale, most of your wealth sat inside one business you understood and controlled. After the sale, you hold liquid capital and a new problem: how to steward it without simply recreating concentration in another form. Leaving everything in cash is a decision, and cash erodes with inflation. Moving all of it into public equities the week the funds clear trades one concentrated risk for another. And if your deal included buyer shares, a rollover, or an earnout, part of your wealth is still tied to a single company’s fortunes, so concentration is not a future risk, it is already on your balance sheet. A considered plan deploys capital over a sensible period, diversifies across asset classes, and keeps liquidity for tax and near-term needs.
What to Look For in a Wealth Manager
Independence and Open Architecture
An independent firm is generally not owned by a company that manufactures investment product, which reduces the built-in pressure to recommend in-house funds. An employee-owned independent firm goes further, aligning the people advising you with your outcomes rather than a parent company’s distribution targets. Open architecture is the practical test of that independence: it means the advisor can select best-in-class managers and solutions from across the market, rather than from a proprietary shelf. The simplest way to probe it is to ask what they cannot offer you, and why.
Breadth Across Asset Classes
A portfolio built only of public stocks is exposed to a single risk, a broad market correction. For a seller who has just turned a lifetime of value into cash, that exposure deserves real attention, and breadth is what spreads it. Fixed income can provide income and ballast, private markets and real assets add return drivers less tied to daily public prices, and alternatives can help manage volatility. You want an advisor who builds across these, not a one-track manager who only knows public equities.
The Questions to Ask Before You Hire
The right questions tell you who an advisor works for before you find out the hard way. Five are worth asking every candidate, and it is as much about how readily they answer as what they say.
| Ask This | Why It Matters | A Strong Answer Sounds Like |
|---|---|---|
| Are you independent, and who owns the firm? | Ownership shapes incentives | Clear ownership, ideally employee-owned, not a product manufacturer |
| Is your platform open architecture? | It sets the field of choice | Access across the market, with a candid list of any limits |
| How do you invest beyond public stocks? | Breadth manages correction risk | A real mix across fixed income, private markets, and real assets |
| How are you paid? | Compensation drives behaviour | All costs in writing, including referral arrangements |
| Who manages my money, and how often do we meet? | Process and accountability | Named people, a clear process, and a regular review schedule |
Fees, Conflicts, and Referrals
Advisors are paid in different ways: a fee based on assets, a flat or retainer fee, or commissions built into products. None is automatically wrong, but you should see the full picture in writing, including any referral arrangements, so you can judge whether the advice is aligned with your interests. In an exit, where several advisors may be introducing you to one another around the transaction, asking who pays or receives a referral fee is simply good housekeeping.
Coordinating With Your Deal, Tax, and Legal Team
Your exit does not happen in isolation, and neither should the wealth plan that follows it. Tax planning and the structure that will hold your proceeds, whether personal accounts, a holding company, or a family trust, often matter as much as the investments themselves, and the decisions are easier and cheaper to make before closing than after. The right wealth manager works alongside the corporate lawyer, tax advisor, and M&A advisor already around your deal, so the investment, tax, and estate pieces fit together rather than being solved separately.
Consider a founder who sells and, wanting to keep things simple, leaves most of the proceeds in cash and rolls the rest into buyer shares and a familiar basket of public stocks. A year later a market correction cuts the equity portion just as funds are needed for the tax bill, and the buyer shares are locked up and down. The problem was not any single choice but the absence of a plan, and of an advisor asking the questions above before the money moved. A seller who had asked how the advisor invests beyond stocks, and how the plan fits the tax timeline, would have spread the same capital more deliberately. This example is hypothetical and for illustration only.
Selling is not the end of concentration risk. It is the moment to manage it, and to choose who helps you do it.
Five Common Mistakes
- “Leaving sale proceeds in cash with no plan, which is a decision, and usually a costly one.”
- “Choosing an advisor who can only offer what their firm manufactures.”
- “Treating a portfolio of public stocks, or a block of buyer shares, as if it were a diversified plan.”
- “Leading with an advisor’s past performance instead of their incentives, breadth, and process.”
- “Investing the proceeds before the tax and structuring work around the exit is done.”
Frequently Asked Questions
Start with a plan built around your goals, liquidity needs, and tax position, then diversify across asset classes over a sensible period rather than deploying everything at once.
Look for an independent, ideally employee-owned firm that uses open architecture and can invest across fixed income, private markets, real assets, and alternatives, not public stocks alone.
Ask whether they are independent and who owns the firm, whether the platform is open architecture, how they invest beyond stocks, how they are paid, and who manages your money and how often you will meet.
Then part of your wealth is still concentrated in one company, so the plan should account for that exposure, any lock-up, and the tax treatment as those amounts are realized.
Common models include a fee based on assets, a flat or retainer fee, and commissions; ask for the full picture in writing, including any referral arrangements.
Ideally before closing, because the tax planning and account structure that hold your proceeds are easier and more effective to put in place ahead of the transaction.
This article is general information about wealth management and investing, current to August 28, 2026. It is not investment, tax, accounting, or legal advice, and it does not take account of your objectives, financial situation, or needs. Nothing here is a recommendation, offer, or solicitation to buy or sell any security or to adopt any investment strategy. Investing involves risk, including possible loss of principal, and past performance does not guarantee future results. Diversification and asset allocation help manage risk but do not ensure a profit or protect against loss. Views are those of the author and may change without notice. Speak with a qualified advisor about your specific circumstances before acting.
Karen Couldrey, CIM · Senior Client Advisor · Forthlane Partners · Toronto