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For executives and founders who get rich off a single stock, it can be easy to have too much of a good thing.
The tech stock boom has been a windfall for employees of fast-growing companies, but there’s a danger in tying too much of your net worth into a single stock. Some advisors use a rule of thumb of 10%. This means that no one stock or asset should represent more than 10% of your portfolio.
“This is both the biggest risk and the biggest opportunity for their clients,” said Rob Romano, head of capital markets investor solutions at Merrill.
Founders and longtime employees looking to diversify their portfolios can face high capital gains taxes when they sell long-term holdings for reinvestment. Instead, you can donate your shares to an exchange-traded fund (not to be confused with an ETF).
Exchange funds, also known as swap funds, pool shares from multiple investors and receive a partnership interest or share of the fund. After a specified lock-up period (usually seven years), investors can redeem their shares for a diversified basket of stocks equal to their interest in the fund.
Currency funds became mainstream in the 1970s, but have become even more popular in recent years, especially as the rise of artificial intelligence has led to high returns in the stock market.
Eric Friedman, chief investment officer of Northern Trust’s wealth management business, said many publicly traded technology companies are increasing stock compensation to compete for talent with hot AI startups.
Currency funds typically hold 80% of their assets in equities and aim to reflect a benchmark index such as: S&P500 The remaining 20% is required by the Internal Revenue Service to be held in non-securities assets, with real estate being the most common choice.
Steve Edwards, senior investment strategist in Morgan Stanley’s wealth division, said clients are increasingly using exchange funds as a wealth transfer strategy.
“What exchange funds are helping us with is narrowing down the range of outcomes, because the outcomes for a single stock can be very wide,” he said. “Imagine you’re 70 years old and you have great stocks, but then it becomes a dumpster fire and you’re essentially unable to pass on the inheritance you were expecting to your heirs.”
Still, getting customers to hedge their bets is often a difficult proposition, Edwards said.
“People remember the blessings that stocks have brought to them and their families, and my guess is that those blessings will continue,” he said. “What we’ve found in our research and research is that stocks that have outperformed in the past actually tend to underperform even more in the future.”
He said customers typically contribute only a portion of their shares to an exchange fund and take away some of their tips.
The Exchange Fund only accepts accredited investors with a value of more than $1 million or earned income of more than $200,000 in the past two calendar years.
And lock-up periods are fraught with details. If investors redeem in less than seven years, they may lose tax benefits and incur high fees. In exchange for receiving a diversified basket of stocks, investors typically get their original shares back up to the amount of their interest on the fund.
Scott Welch, chief investment officer at multifamily office Certuity, said he advises against going into exchange-traded funds because of the lock-up period. He said there are more flexible ways to avoid risk, including collars, variable prepaid forwards, and tax loss recovery through long and short positions. If liquidity is a client’s main goal, borrowing against stocks is also a solid option.
