A team approach to professional wealth management

The RBC Wealth Management Services team works closely with us to provide strategies to help reduce your taxes, plan for your retirement and protect your legacy.

With over 250 highly accredited tax, legal and financial professionals, the industry-leading RBC Wealth Management Services team helps us provide the integrated wealth management solutions you would normally only expect to find at a family office acting for Canada's wealthiest families.

From comprehensive financial plans to guidance on complex tax and legal issues, this team of highly skilled specialists helps your Investment Advisors create an integrated family wealth management strategy, which can be implemented in coordination with your existing tax and legal advisors.

The team’s areas of expertise include:

  • Retirement planning: Helping you meet your retirement income goals and maximize your after-tax retirement income
  • Financial planning: Creating a comprehensive strategy to help you stay on track to meeting your financial and life goals
  • Taxation: Implementing strategies to help reduce your family’s tax burden
  • Business ownership planning: Helping you effectively transition from your business while reducing taxes and maximizing retirement assets
  • Estate and trusts: Efficiently transferring your wealth to the next generation
  • Insurance solutions: Providing financial security, tax reduction, enhanced retirement income and legacy protection
  • Charitable giving: Helping you maximize your charitable legacy

The freedom to live the life you want

If you desire greater freedom to focus on what’s really important to you, and the confidence of knowing that your portfolio is in the care of trusted professionals, we invite you to consider Private Investment Management, our premium level of discretionary wealth management. 

Busy professionals and executives, travelers, retirees and snowbirds often find that the greater their wealth, the more time they require every day to manage it. If you are responsible for investing for a not-for-profit organization, foundation or endowment, you may also find that the expertise required to make investment decisions according to specific guidelines can be time-consuming and complex. 

Whether you need your time to focus on your career, manage the needs of an organization or travel outside of the country for long periods, Private Investment Management may be the right solution for you.

How it works

By delegating your investment management to an accredited portfolio manager, who works within your specific investment preferences, constraints and risk tolerance, you can free yourself from and still be confident that your investment plan is on track. Because your approval is not required for every single transaction, we can make time-sensitive decisions quickly, helping you get closer to your investment objectives and freeing you from the burden of daily portfolio decisions. 

A dedicated portfolio manager to serve you 

You can be confident in the management of your wealth, because only experienced investment advisors who have met strict industry-wide qualifications for education, assets under management and investment experience are licensed to provide this level of discretionary investment management. 

Investment policy statements capture your needs

The Investment Policy Statement is your specific mandate that details all your objectives, goals and constraints in managing your portfolio. You can think of it as the charter or master plan that we create to manage your portfolio.

Essential standards for quality and oversight

Every portfolio we build is based on core asset quality requirements that set the standards for security concentration, industry and sector diversification, market capitalization and credit quality. An additional Portfolio Implementation and Risk Monitoring Group monitors the portfolio for alignment with our investment management guidelines and the preferences, constraints and other unique directives set out in your customized Investment Policy Statement. An additional compliance team ensures that your portfolio meets industry regulations and legal standards. By auditing our work, as well as the portfolios we manage, this team can help provide you with even greater peace of mind.

6 questions to ask a potential Investment Advisor

Choosing an investment advisor is one of the most critical financial decisions you will ever make. Before entering into any partnership, it's important to ask the following questions and make sure you are comfortable with the answers.

1. Are you accredited or registered?

Ask your prospective investment advisor how they are registered, and the range of services, products and advice they are qualified to provide. The investment firm they are employed by should be a member of the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada (IIROC), which regulates all investment dealers in Canada (including RBC Dominion Securities). IIROC monitors and enforces rules regarding the proficiency, business and financial conduct of these firms and their advisors.

2. What is your experience?

Your investment advisor should be forthcoming about their industry experience, professional qualifications, memberships and education. Also, fewer years as an advisor may not necessarily mean less expertise. Many investment advisors enter the profession after many years of working as experts in a particular field with people who would later become clients, for example as consultants to business owners who later specialize in business owners' investment portfolios.

3. What kinds of products and services can you provide?

Ask if your investment advisor is limited to certain investments (such as proprietary products offered by their firm, GICs or mutual funds) or if you can draw on a greater range of investment products. Make sure you ask about your investment advisor's access to investment research, portfolio strategy teams, and risk management groups. Find out if your advisor focuses on investment solutions only, or has access to a wide network of partners in areas such as financial planning, insurance solutions, retirement, and estate planning services.

4. What type of clients do you serve?

Ask whether your potential investment advisor specializes in any particular client group, such as business owners, medical professionals or retirees. Don't be shy about asking for references either; your investment advisor is in many ways applying for the job.

5. How will you help me reach my goals?

Your advisor should ask you to outline your investment objectives – for example, preserving income, building wealth, retiring comfortably. Your advisor may also draw on value-added services such as financial, tax or estate planning to ensure that your ongoing wealth needs (in addition to investments) are in sync with the rest of your affairs.

Ask about your advisor's investment process, and how they create and manage your portfolio. Is each portfolio custom-crafted, or is the advisor following a set of established models? Confirm that you are comfortable with the process.

6. What kind of service will I receive?

Your advisor should clarify at the outset the level of service you can expect. This includes how often you will meet to review your progress; how your advisor will update you on portfolio performance; and what sort of contact you can expect from your advisor.