Who We Serve · Business owners
For many owners, most of their net worth is tied up inside the company — and a sale, succession, or liquidity event puts it all in motion at once. We help you plan for that moment as a fee-only fiduciary, coordinating with your CPA and attorney, before and after the deal closes.
How we help
If most of your wealth is tied up in the business, the sale is the moment everything hinges on. How the proceeds are structured — timing, entity and gifting strategies, where the money goes — is something we help you weigh with your CPA and attorney, and that planning generally has the most room to help when it starts well before the deal closes. This is not tax advice, and outcomes depend on your individual circumstances.
After the sale, the question flips: how do you invest a large, sudden sum for the next chapter? We help owners move from a single concentrated asset to a diversified plan designed for what comes next — and coordinate with your CPA and attorney throughout.
A sale pulls in several specialists at once — a CPA, an attorney, often a broker or M&A advisor. Our role is to keep the financial plan coherent across all of them: modeling how deal structure and timing flow through to your after-tax proceeds, and how those proceeds map to your goals for the years ahead. Because we are fee-only, we earn no commissions or referral fees on the transaction, so our guidance isn't tied to the deal.
Before a sale, much of what you are worth can sit in a single, illiquid asset you do not fully control. We help you weigh the tradeoffs — timing, liquidity, and how much risk is concentrated in one place — and plan a measured, tax-aware transition toward a diversified portfolio suited to your circumstances. All investing involves risk, including the possible loss of principal, and no strategy can remove it.
Where we focus
We help you manage the risk of a single large holding and plan a measured, tax-aware path toward diversification.
Direct indexing, tax-loss harvesting, and asset location applied to your proceeds year-round, coordinated with your CPA. Techniques like tax-loss harvesting are subject to IRS rules (e.g. the wash-sale rule); this is not tax advice, and benefits depend on your individual circumstances.
We model how a lump sum can be invested with the aim of supporting income for the next chapter, built around your spending, time horizon, and goals — though no particular income level is guaranteed.
We coordinate gifting, entity, and legacy strategies with your estate attorney and CPA as the sale is structured.
Questions
Much depends on your individual circumstances and how the deal is structured, so this is a planning conversation rather than a single tactic — and it is not tax advice. Common areas to explore with your CPA include the timing of the sale, how proceeds are allocated across the deal, entity and gifting strategies, and how you invest afterward. As a fee-only fiduciary, we help you model these options and coordinate with your tax professional, ideally well before the deal closes.
The years before a sale are when planning generally has the most room to work. That window is typically used to organize your full financial picture, model how different deal structures affect your after-tax proceeds, weigh entity and gifting strategies with your attorney and CPA, and decide where the proceeds will go. We help you make those decisions deliberately, rather than in the rush around a closing.
Qualified Small Business Stock (QSBS) refers to a federal tax provision under Internal Revenue Code Section 1202 that may allow eligible shareholders to exclude some or all of the gain on qualifying C-corporation stock, subject to detailed holding-period and company requirements. Whether it applies to you depends entirely on your individual circumstances, and the rules are technical — this is educational information, not tax advice. We can help you and your CPA consider whether it is worth analyzing as part of your plan.
There is no single answer — it depends on your goals, time horizon, income needs, and comfort with volatility. We generally help owners move from one concentrated, illiquid asset toward a globally diversified plan designed for what comes next, phased in a way that is mindful of taxes and market conditions. All investing involves risk, including the possible loss of principal, and no outcome is guaranteed.
Your broker or M&A advisor focuses on getting the deal done, and your CPA on the tax return and compliance. A fee-only fiduciary advisor's role is the financial plan around the whole event — how the deal structure affects your long-term goals, what the proceeds need to support, and how to invest them afterward — coordinating with your CPA and attorney rather than replacing them. Based in San Clemente, we work with business owners across Orange County and California, and because we are fee-only we earn no commissions or referral fees on the transaction.
Important disclosures. The information on this page is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not investment, tax, or legal advice, nor a recommendation to buy or sell any security or to adopt any investment strategy. Model portfolios and strategy descriptions are general and illustrative; a client's actual portfolio is personalized and will differ based on individual circumstances.
All investing involves risk, including the possible loss of principal. Diversification and asset allocation do not ensure a profit or protect against loss, and past performance is not indicative of future results. Tax-management techniques such as direct indexing and tax-loss harvesting depend on individual circumstances, are subject to IRS rules (including the wash-sale rule), and may not benefit every investor. SCN Capital does not provide tax or legal advice; please consult your qualified tax professional.
A short, no-obligation conversation with a fee-only fiduciary in San Clemente to see whether we are the right fit for the years around your sale.
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