Wealth Planning

Wealth planning at Ferguson Wellman and West Bearing is a comprehensive process of understanding our clients' financial circumstances and their unique goals and values.  Our team of wealth planning experts leverages our Wealth Horizon™ planning process to evaluate a client's current financial picture, assess how it may evolve over time and identify opportunities and strategies designed to optimize their plan and achieve their goals with greater confidence and peace of mind. 

Retirement

Retirement planning is a dynamic and evolving process. Whether saving for, transitioning into, or already enjoying retirement, there are important decisions to be made along the way.  We help our clients navigate each stage of the planning process by evaluating the resources needed for a comfortable retirement, modeling cash flow and sustainable spending, and considering tax efficient investing and withdrawal strategies. We also provide guidance on key retirement decisions such as retirement plan selection, executive and employer stock compensation, optimal Social Security claiming strategies, and insurance decisions.

Life Events

As life evolves, significant events and milestones occur with nuanced personal and financial implications. Whether it’s starting or selling a business, marital changes, the loss of a loved one or planning for children and grandchildren, having a plan in place for these moments ensures you can respond quickly to changes and navigate life events with ease. We help our clients plan for key life events in advance or respond quickly when unexpected events occur, assessing the financial impact and evaluating or adjusting strategies in response. 

Trust and Estate Considerations

Estate planning is the process of creating a plan to protect, manage, and transfer wealth in a way that reflects your values and aligns with your goals. A well-designed estate plan should ensure your wealth and affairs are administered as seamlessly and efficiently as possible, distributions are aligned with your wishes, and taxes are minimized. Whether planning for the future or managing a current transition, our team works closely with clients, their families, and their tax and legal advisors to understand their current estate goals, trust structures that may be appropriate, and other strategies that may align with their estate plan. 

Tax Efficient Investing

Taxes are an important consideration in portfolio management and wealth planning. We work in partnership with our clients’ tax professional to identify and implement strategies intended to minimize the impact of taxes on our clients’ wealth. Within client portfolios, we aim to optimize after-tax returns, leveraging strategies such as tax-loss harvesting, capital gains management, tax-efficient trading, and tax-exempt bonds where appropriate. Outside the portfolio we help our clients evaluate strategies such as tax bracket optimization, estate and gift tax strategies, tax-efficient charitable giving, and more.

Philanthropic Strategies

Philanthropic giving can be an important element of a person or family’s legacy. Our team helps clients define and achieve their philanthropic goals. We offer education on tax-efficient charitable strategies and collaborate with tax and legal advisors to identify and evaluate the best structures and sources for charitable contributions. This ensures that giving is impactful, aligns with our client’s unique goals, and integrates seamlessly into their comprehensive wealth plan.

Risk Management

Education Planning and Funding

Effective education planning helps plan for the rising cost of education within the context of a broader plan.  Our team can support clients in projecting the future cost of education, selecting and facilitating the optimal savings vehicle, such as 529 plans, and evaluating the impact of funding education goals on their overall wealth plan.

2025 Financial Planning Guide

This resource is designed to facilitate conversations regarding taxes, retirement, estate planning and charitable giving with our individual clients and their other professional partners. We also share this information with investment committees and employees associated with our institutional clients as a courtesy for their own personal financial planning.