Wealth Management Strategies for Corporate Executives

You have worked hard to build a comfortable life for yourself and your family. Your hard work has been rewarded with financial success and, as your wealth has grown, so has the complexity of managing it. As a corporate executive, you face a number of unique financial challenges, including equity awards, restricted stock, blackout periods and deferred compensation plans. To create a comprehensive wealth management plan, you will need to address these challenges in the context of your most important goals.
Strategies for Reaching Your Most Important Goals
Maximizing your equity compensation. As a successful executive, the by-product of your career is often a large, concentrated position in your company’s stock, representing a significant portion of your personal net worth and a high level of complexity. An experienced Financial Advisor can provide guidance on understanding your equity awards, complying with SEC regulations, increasing your liquidity, deferring compensation and separating from service.
Retiring as anticipated. For many executives, retiring as anticipated is a priority, even if they go on to pursue new passions, serve on boards or participate in entrepreneurial ventures. As retirement approaches, your focus will likely shift from accumulating assets and managing market risk to preserving assets, generating income and managing the risk that you will outlive your assets.
Transferring wealth and leaving a meaningful legacy. Proactive estate planning can help you minimize taxes, avoid family conflict, protect family members who don’t have experience managing money and provide for charitable organizations that are important to you. Work together with your estate planning attorney, accountant and Financial Advisor to create strategies that help ensure financial security for your heirs, while mitigating estate taxes.
Help protect your family. Life is constantly changing in both expected and unforeseen ways. It is worthwhile to invest time in understanding your options for protecting yourself and your family from the financial impact of death, disability or unforeseen health care expenses.
Fulfilling your philanthropic aspirations. You may have philanthropic aspirations that range from supporting charitable organizations to passing on your values to your children and grandchildren. Integrating purposeful giving into your overall wealth management plan can help maximize your impact.
Taking a Goals-Based Approach to Managing Your Wealth
Traditionally, wealth management centered around having a diversified portfolio and measuring its performance against a benchmark. But, for most people, successful wealth management is less about the day-to-day fluctuations in the market and more about having the resources they need to pursue and achieve their goals.
Goals-based wealth management, as its name implies, is a goals-based approach to managing your wealth. It revolves around reaching your objectives, rather than chasing after an elusive return. It changes the focus from creating a portfolio to concentrating on building the life you wish to lead. With goals-based wealth management, you develop a strategy to reach your goals and measure success by the progress you’ve made toward achieving them.
In an increasingly complex and ever-changing world, goals-based wealth management helps you chart a clear course to the future you envision for yourself and your family.
With the help of a Financial Advisor who understands your full financial picture—and your personal and financial priorities—you can develop a comprehensive wealth management plan that fits your needs and helps you stay on track to achieve all of your most important goals.
Article by Morgan Stanley and provided courtesy of Morgan Stanley Financial Advisor. Brian Jacobs is a Wealth Advisor in Valencia, CA at Morgan Stanley Smith Barney LLC (“Morgan Stanley”). He can be reached by email at brian.jacobs@morganstanley.com or by telephone at 661-290-2022.
This article has been prepared for informational purposes only. The information and data in the article has been obtained from sources outside of Morgan Stanley. Morgan Stanley makes no representations or guarantees as to the accuracy or completeness of the information or data from sources outside of Morgan Stanley. It does not provide individually tailored investment advice and has been prepared without regard to the individual financial circumstances and objectives of persons who receive it. The strategies and/or investments discussed in this article may not be suitable for all investors. Morgan Stanley recommends that investors independently evaluate particular investments and strategies, and encourages investors to seek the advice of a Financial Advisor. The appropriateness of a particular investment or strategy will depend on an investor’s individual circumstances and objectives.
Morgan Stanley Smith Barney LLC (“Morgan Stanley”), its affiliates and Morgan Stanley Financial Advisors and Private Wealth Advisors do not provide tax or legal advice. Clients should consult their tax advisor for matters involving taxation and tax planning and their attorney for matters involving trust and estate planning, charitable giving, philanthropic planning and other legal matters.
Brian Jacobs may only transact business, follow-up with individualized responses, or render personalized investment advice for compensation, in states where he is registered or excluded or exempted from registration, © 2018 Morgan Stanley Smith Barney LLC. Member SIPC. CRC 2298144 11/2018