Episode summary

Tax Personalization, Values-Based Portfolios and the New HNW Advice Model

WealthManagement.com · · 9 min · Guests: Michael Featherman

Tax Personalization, Values-Based Portfolios and the New HNW Advice Model – WealthManagement.com

Summary

High-net-worth clients are pushing advisors toward more personalized, more holistic advice across taxes, portfolio construction, values, and alternatives. Michael Featherman says tax personalization should start with a client-specific long-term gain budget, then use an optimization framework that harvests short-term losses while staying aligned with the annual financial plan.

He argues that many advisors cannot serve affluent households well if they try to build every capability in-house. Envestnet Private Wealth, he says, helps by outsourcing portfolio construction, client-review preparation, and other investment-management tasks so advisors can spend more time on trust services, financial planning, lending, insurance, and other ancillary needs that matter to clients in the $10 million to $20 million range.

Featherman also says values-based investing has moved from simple ESG screens to more customized portfolio design. He points to research, third-party manager selection, and positive-screen portfolio construction as ways to align with client preferences like low-climate exposure or avoiding animal testing without sacrificing the intended portfolio framework. Looking ahead, he says alternatives are becoming the next major demand, and the firm is investing in technology to support limited trade window funds, private real estate, infrastructure, and private equity.

Key takeaways

  • Michael Featherman says tax personalization starts with a client-agreed long-term gain budget and then uses loss harvesting to manage short-term gains.
  • He says advisors serving $10 million to $20 million clients need outsourced support because those households expect trust, lending, insurance and planning services beyond basic portfolio management.
  • Featherman says values-based portfolios are moving from broad ESG labels to more precise screens and positive-screen construction built into the model itself.
  • He says the next major HNW demand is alternatives, including limited trade window funds, private real estate, infrastructure and private equity.
  • Featherman says advisors who outsource investment management are growing 2x to 3x versus those trying to build everything themselves.

Notable quotes

“the personalization of our tax management comes out through our long-term gain budget declaration”

— Michael Featherman at 0:44

“So in order for an adviser to effectively service those needs, build those capabilities andor bring inmemes, what we like to do to bring it back to how do we help them simplify, excel and meet meet the personalization”

— Michael Featherman at 3:12

“advisors that are outsourcing that are growing, you know, 2x, 3x to compared to an adviser that's non and building their own portfolios and trying to juggle all those other needs”

— Michael Featherman at 3:49

“the first gen becomes income focused cuz those limited trade window funds typically perform perform better with a gated withdrawal”

— Michael Featherman at 10:06

How the episode opens

High net worth clients expect more personalized advice across their full financial life. So to break it all down for me and to hear about the trends, I'm joined by Michael Featherman. Michael, thanks so much for sitting down with me. Th

Thrilled to be with you this afternoon. — So let's talk about tax management a little bit because it's obviously table stakes at this point when it comes to high net worth clients, but most advisers aren't necessarily delivering it the way they should. that truly feels individualized and like they're adding value. What does genuine tax personalization look like and how can investment help advisors?

Yeah, I think that the personalization of our tax management comes out through our long-term gain budget declaration. So, think about delivering personalization at scale. So, we like to have advisors build models and use them over and over.

That creates efficiency. You can then apply a tax overlay on top of those accounts and then personalize it by meeting with the client establishing what your annual gain budget is. Then the algorithm is going to, you know, non-stop aggressively look to harvest short-term losses to eliminate short-term gains.

You will receive that long-term gain agreed upon budget every year. And that's an important distinction that we do because our tax optimization capability personalized as it is as important. And I think it can keep going in perpetuity where some of the you know great competing managers in the industry that do this type of tax optimization they may do aggressive realization to eliminate gains period and you get to a a trade lock state.

So we we chose to avoid short-term gains because they're taxed at the highest level. establish that long-term gain budget which is consistent with your annual financial plan and then let the optimization framework give you that gain target, but we will harvest losses above and beyond and as we can.

From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →

Topics

  • tax personalization
  • values-based investing
  • wealth transfer planning
  • concentrated stock risk
  • outsourcing wealth management

Companies and tickers mentioned

  • Envestnet Private Wealth

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Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.

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