Equity Compensation Decisions Don’t Happen in Isolation

Stephen, an Executive at a large pharmaceutical company, was referred to Rockwood by a long-standing client. Stephen recognized that his complex financial situation required advanced planning beyond the capabilities of his current broker, who was mainly concerned with discussing the merits of buying a handful of tech stocks and chasing hot investment trends. Stephen was looking for an advisor who could coordinate and assimilate the various facets of his financial life, including his investment portfolio.

Critically, a sizable percentage of Stephen’s net worth was tied to his employer as he accumulated large positions in his company’s Non-Qualified Stock Options, Restricted Stock Units, Employee Stock Purchase Plans, and Non-Qualified Deferred Compensation plans. He even maintained shares of company stock inside his 401(k), which further contributed to unnecessarily high levels of single-company-risk.

After reviewing his goals, we laid out a structured and logical diversification strategy for the various employer stock holdings to mitigate his concentrated single-stock exposure. To reduce taxes, we helped Stephen with the decision to elect to defer some of his salary and bonus into the company’s Non-Qualified Deferred Compensation plan, walking him through a multi-decade tax projection to illustrate the impact of this decision.

Moreover, after reviewing the entirety of his financial picture, Rockwood uncovered that Stephen was woefully underinsured from a Life and Disability Insurance perspective and assisted him with placing a low-cost Term Life Insurance policy and supplemental Long-term Disability Income Insurance policy to ensure that his wife and three boys were well supported if he were to pass away or become disabled.

The confidence that he was able to derive in his long-term financial trajectory, through the partnership with Rockwood, led him to spend more time on what was most important to him, spending time with his family at their home in Avalon, NJ.

This example is hypothetical and for illustrative purposes only. It is intended to reflect a typical client relationship and does not describe the experience of any actual client or represent an endorsement or testimonial of our firm.

As an executive, you want your financial decisions to
support your career, family, and retirement goals. But in
practice, those decisions are rarely simple:

• A large share of your wealth may depend on one employer’s stock.

• Stock options, RSUs, deferred compensation, and retirement plans need to be disentangled and reconciled to a comprehensive plan.

• Timing decisions often carry lasting tax consequences.

• Concentration risk can grow quietly while your career is still in motion.

Most executives have an abundance of equity compensation, yet lack the time to integrate it into a comprehensive plan. At Rockwood Wealth Management, we help you bring your equity compensation and related financial decisions into a coordinated strategy.