Scotia Wealth Management: a wealth management second opinion for executives
What you walk away with after the first review:
A line-by-line check of your current strategy, with what already works left alone.
A selling schedule for concentrated company stock that accounts for taxes and blackout windows.
Deferred compensation payout elections reviewed before your employer's election cutoff arrives.
A written roadmap short enough to read between meetings, and yours to keep.
Your questions about Scotia Wealth Management, answered
The minimum is $500,000 in investable assets, and vested shares, brokerage accounts, IRAs and 401(k) balances are the kind of money that usually covers. If much of your wealth is unvested RSUs or deferred pay not yet received, say so on the request form and Scotia Wealth Management will tell you plainly whether it fits.
You'll see the exact cost in writing and approve it before you pay anything. Scotia Wealth Management doesn't publish fees on this site because they depend on what you bring. The fee schedule is part of your first conversation, and no charge appears that you haven't agreed to on paper.
We reply to set up a first conversation, and your blackout doesn't need to end for that. Scotia Wealth Management asks for recent statements, your equity award summary and your deferred compensation election forms, then reads them before you meet so the meeting goes to your decisions, not to collecting paperwork.
You'll meet with an advisor who has already read your statements, so you won't spend the meeting explaining your vesting schedule from scratch. If you want a single ongoing contact, mention it on the request form; we confirm in writing who handles your accounts after the first review.
A fifth of your investable assets in one stock is the shortcut we use; above that, diversifying usually comes first. With $2 million invested, that's $400,000. Count vested shares, unvested awards you expect to receive and options, and remember that your salary and bonus also depend on the same company.
Usually a lump sum is the more expensive choice, because the whole balance lands in one tax year. A $600,000 balance paid at once adds $600,000 to that year's income, while five annual payouts add $120,000 each year. Your plan's rules, your other income and your company's financial health still matter, so read the plan document first.
A 10b5-1 trading plan is a written schedule of future stock sales that you set while you're allowed to trade, so sales can proceed later without a fresh decision each time. Scotia Wealth Management advisors help executives set one up, and we check your company's own insider-trading policy before the schedule is final.
No. Leaving the money in your old employer's plan, rolling it into a new employer's plan or moving it to an IRA are all allowed, and each has trade-offs in costs, investment choices and creditor protection. Scotia Wealth Management gives 401(k) rollover advice either way, and if staying put is better for you, we'll say so.
Yes, and many people do it quietly. You send your statements, award agreements and the existing roadmap, and we check whether the risk, the tax cost and the payout schedules still fit your life today. Often most of it holds up. You can keep your advisor, change nothing or move on afterward.
Often yes, because a handful of well-timed calls covers most of what matters for an executive: the fall election cutoff, the January tax forms and any vesting or trading-window decision. If your holdings are simple and under $500,000, though, you may not need a firm at all. Reviews are online or by phone, so travel never gets in the way.
Scotia Wealth Management and wealth management for executives holding company stock
Scotia Wealth Management is a wealth management firm that reviews the deferred compensation and concentrated company stock of busy corporate executives. A typical first review looks at your award agreements, your deferred compensation election and your brokerage statements side by side.
Most executives who call already have something: an old roadmap, a spreadsheet, an advisor from ten years ago. They call because a vesting date, an election cutoff or a job change is close and nobody has checked how those pieces affect one another. We start as a second opinion. If your roadmap holds up, we tell you so and change nothing; if one piece is broken, we fix that piece and leave the rest alone.
Figures as of 10/12/2026.
Scotia Wealth Management in plain terms, and the first 90 days
Scotia Wealth Management serves 450,000 clients and $5.2 billion in client assets as of 10/5/2026, with clients joining from coast to coast and meeting online or by phone. For an executive, that mostly means one thing: someone reads your equity award agreements, your deferred compensation election and your brokerage statements together, which your employer's portal never does.
The services are specific: concentrated stock planning, deferred compensation planning, equity compensation planning, financial plan review, executive retirement planning, tax planning for executives, 10b5-1 trading plan setup and 401(k) rollover advice. The account minimum is $500,000 in investable assets. Nothing gets billed that you haven't read and signed first.
The first 90 days run in four steps, and the table shows what you hand over and what you get back.
| Step | What happens | What you receive |
|---|---|---|
| Days 1-10 | Intake and document gathering | List of what to send |
| Days 10-40 | We read awards, elections, statements | Findings: what works, what's broken |
| Days 40-70 | We estimate tax cost of each change | Draft roadmap with tax estimates |
| Days 70-90 | Review meeting, then your decisions | Final roadmap and cutoff calendar |
If you manage your own investments
You probably pick sound funds already. What a do-it-yourself investor lacks usually isn't skill; it's hours. A vice president with four vesting dates, a nonqualified deferred compensation election and a trading window that opens twice a year rarely has an afternoon to model what selling 5,000 shares does to this year's tax return.
At Scotia Wealth Management, advisors take on the slow, fiddly work, and you keep the decisions that are really yours.
One honest limit: if your portfolio is under $500,000 and your holdings are simple, hiring a firm like ours probably costs more than it returns. A low-cost index fund and your own annual checkup may serve you better.
- You keep choosing how much risk you can stomach and which goals come first.
- You keep control of your accounts and the final yes on every change.
- We take over modeling the tax cost of selling shares, reading award agreements and tracking election cutoffs.
- We also flag when a fund or account you own overlaps with your company stock.
If your year runs on vesting dates and election windows
January belongs to paperwork. Your W-2 now includes equity income, brokerage 1099s trickle in through February, and we reconcile them against what you expected to owe.
By spring, the bonus is paid and we check how much of it went into your deferred compensation account. Summer is for trading windows. If a 10b5-1 trading plan makes sense, this is when we set it up, because the plan has a waiting period before the first sale.
Fall is the busiest stretch. Most deferred compensation plans want next year's election before a late-year cutoff, and that choice (how much to defer, and over how many years to be paid out) is hard to change once it's made.
December is tax cleanup: harvesting losses, trimming a position and giving shares to charity if that fits.
When you walk out of a review meeting
You join a review from your desk or your car; video and phone both work. The first thing we look at is concentration: what share of your wealth rides on one employer. Then we go through what you leave with.
Before we suggest swapping a fund, we run the sale through your tax return to see what the swap would cost. Sometimes that cost kills the idea, and we say so.
- A short list of changes, ranked by how much tax or risk each one removes.
- The estimated tax cost of every sale we suggest, shown before you decide.
- A cutoff calendar for elections, vesting dates and trading windows.
- A note on what we looked at and left alone because it was working.
Say a hypothetical vice president holds $1.4 million in one stock
Take a hypothetical 54-year-old vice president, for illustration only. She has $3.5 million of investable assets, $1.4 million of it in her employer's stock, plus a $600,000 deferred compensation balance that pays out as one lump sum the year she retires.
Our shortcut: if more than a fifth of your investable assets sits in one stock, diversifying comes first. A fifth of $3.5 million is $700,000, so about $700,000 of that stock is the excess. At 40 percent of her assets, she holds double the threshold.
A 10b5-1 trading plan could sell $175,000 of stock each quarter for four quarters, which totals $700,000. Assume the shares she sells cost $200,000 in total; the gain is $500,000, and at an illustrative 20 percent tax rate that's $100,000 of tax, spread across the four quarters.
The deferred compensation matters just as much. Paid as one lump sum, $600,000 lands on top of her salary in a single year; spread over five annual payouts it's $120,000 each year. Whether she can still change the schedule depends on her plan's rules, so we'd read those first.
One more number. If the stock fell 30 percent before she sold, the $1.4 million position would lose $420,000; markets go down as well as up, and any holding can lose money, principal included.
What happens if markets fall 20 percent
Scotia Wealth Management doesn't predict the next drop and doesn't promise to avoid one. What we do is look at what you'd have to sell. We'd rather keep two years of spending in cash or short-term bonds for anyone drawing withdrawals, because selling in a down year is what really hurts.
For an executive, a drop usually hits twice: the portfolio falls, and the company's stock and unvested awards often fall with it. So we measure how much of your pay and your wealth depends on one employer before a downturn, not during one. We don't time the market, and we won't call you in a panic to sell.
Clients join from coast to coast; the office is in Minneapolis, at 299 Marquette Avenue, MN 55401. Tell us what you hold through the form above, and we'll set up a review.
New on the blog
- How much company stock is too much when retirement is a few years away?
- Deferred compensation distribution options for the executive about to sign a payout election
- How to split your next dollar in the NQDC vs 401(k) choice
- RSU tax mistakes: five that turned a $400,000 vest into a $60,000 April bill
- Net Unrealized Appreciation Strategy for Company Stock in a 401(k) (a Walkthrough from Scotia Wealth Management)
- How Scotia Wealth Management Approaches Exchange Fund vs Direct Indexing for Concentrated Stock
Wherever you live in the US, Scotia Wealth Management can work with you remotely; in person at 299 Marquette Avenue, Minneapolis, MN 55401, United States. Contact →
What Scotia Wealth Management does
Concentrated stock planning
A staged selling schedule for your company shares, with the tax cost of each sale estimated.
Concentrated stock planning →Deferred compensation planning
Payout elections checked against your retirement date, tax brackets and your employer's financial strength.
Deferred compensation planning →Equity compensation planning
RSUs, options and ESPP shares mapped to vest dates, withholding gaps and trading windows.
Equity compensation planning →Financial plan review
Your current strategy reviewed line by line, with keep, fix or decide marked on each item.
Financial plan review →Executive retirement planning
A roadmap that times deferred comp, stock sales and Social Security around your retirement date.
Executive retirement planning →Tax planning for executives
Withholding gaps, vest-year income spikes and charitable gifts of stock planned before year-end.
Tax planning for executives →10b5-1 trading plan setup
A pre-set selling schedule for insiders, reviewed against your company's insider trading policy.
10b5-1 trading plan setup →401(k) rollover advice
Old 401(k) balances moved without a tax surprise, with company stock checked for NUA first.
401(k) rollover advice →
Services at Scotia Wealth Management for executive pay and company stock
A staged selling schedule for your company shares, with the tax cost of each sale estimated.
Payout elections checked against your retirement date, tax brackets and your employer's financial strength.
RSUs, options and ESPP shares mapped to vest dates, withholding gaps and trading windows.
Your current strategy reviewed line by line, with keep, fix or decide marked on each item.
Concentrated stock planning
A staged selling schedule for your company shares, with the tax cost of each sale estimated.
Deferred compensation planning
Payout elections checked against your retirement date, tax brackets and your employer's financial strength.
Equity compensation planning
RSUs, options and ESPP shares mapped to vest dates, withholding gaps and trading windows.
Financial plan review
Your current strategy reviewed line by line, with keep, fix or decide marked on each item.
What makes Scotia Wealth Management different from starting over?
Many executives who come to us already have an advisor, a 401(k) and a pile of equity statements. Scotia Wealth Management reads all of it before the first meeting and marks each piece keep, fix or decide. Before we suggest selling a fund or a block of shares, we put the tax cost of that sale in writing next to the reason. Sometimes the honest answer is to change nothing, and we say that too.
Who we are and what we do
Scotia Wealth Management serves 450,000 clients† and manages $5.2 billion† in client assets.
Why busy executives hand their equity statements to Scotia Wealth Management
You have RSUs vesting every quarter, a deferred compensation election with a cutoff each year, and a board meeting that same week. The company stock that built your net worth may now be a third of it. Scotia Wealth Management advisors track the vest dates, trading windows and payout elections, then bring you one decision at a time with the math done. You decide; we handle the paperwork with the custodian.
Accounts start at $500,000 in investable assets, and you'll sign off in writing on every fee before any is charged.
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