Firm programs
Retire-in-place programs: how firm sunset deals work
Every major firm now offers a way for a retiring advisor to hand a book to a successor inside the firm and be paid over time. These programs are the only bid most employee advisors will ever receive, which means the terms are set by the party that knows you have no alternative.
The common structure
A retiring advisor names an internal successor, commits to a transition period, and receives payments calculated on trailing production and spread across several years after departure. Program names and formulas differ by firm; the shape is remarkably consistent.
What the headline number leaves out
Payments are usually staged, frequently tied to asset or revenue retention after you go, and almost always conditional on post-departure conduct — no competing, no soliciting, sometimes no registration at all. A program quoted as a high percentage of production can settle meaningfully lower once retention and timing are applied.
Choosing the successor is the whole deal
Your payout depends on someone else keeping your clients. That makes successor selection the most consequential financial decision in the process, and it is frequently made on tenure or friendship rather than on who will actually retain the book. Ask how the candidate’s own clients have stayed.
Where the leverage is
Timing, the length of the transition period, and the successor choice are usually the negotiable elements; the formula rarely is. Advisors who begin the conversation two or three years out negotiate from a much better position than advisors who begin it after they have announced.
What you give up
Accepting a program generally forecloses an outside sale and constrains what you can do next. For many advisors that is a fair trade for certainty. It should still be a decision rather than a default.
Not legal advice. Program terms, clawbacks and post-departure restrictions are contractual and specific to your firm. Have counsel read the agreement before you sign.
Compare the program against an open-market sale
Model both sides honestly before you commit to one. A confidential valuation of an owned practice takes about a minute.
Who Owns My Book of Business is an authorized lead-generation partner of buyAUM. buyAUM compensates us only if a transition is completed. Sellers are never charged a fee at any stage. Nothing on this site is legal, tax, or compliance advice.