With Frank Restorick, CFP® (Wealth Planner, Optimize Wealth Management), Greg Rozdeba (Co-Founder & CEO, Dundas Wealth) & Martin Ochwat (COO, Dundas Wealth)
If someone asked you that about your business today, could you answer? Most incorporated owners can’t — and yet “I’ll sell the business someday” is the entire retirement plan for a lot of them.
In Episode 12 of Keep What You Build, Martin Ochwat and Greg Rozdeba sit down with Frank Restorick, CFP®, Wealth Planner at Optimize Wealth Management, who sees this gap every week in his practice. The conversation is about what a real retirement plan looks like when most of your net worth is tied up in one company.
Frank frames it the way you’d frame any concentrated position: if 80 or 90% of your wealth sits in the business, that’s the same risk as holding 80 or 90% of your wealth in a single stock. The work is to start de-risking — moving money into personal assets like TFSAs and RRSPs over time — so that the business becomes one piece of the plan rather than the whole thing.
Don’t rely on that 100% for your retirement. Too many variables that can ruin things for you.
It starts with clarity: when do you actually want to retire, and on how much income? The answer changes a lot depending on whether you plan to sell the business or pass it to family — and Frank’s view is that the planning should start three to five years out, at a minimum.
Frank walks through the RRSP-vs.-corporate-investing question and the “all eggs, one basket” problem that comes with leaving everything inside the company. He also covers how passive income earned inside the corporation grinds down the small business deduction — and why owners heading toward a sale look at “cleansing” the corporation of passive assets.
One of the few tax-sheltered options still available to incorporated owners: moving some retained earnings into a corporate-owned permanent life insurance policy, where the growth inside the contract is tax-sheltered. Frank explains how owners can borrow against the policy, why lenders accept it as collateral, and how some owners use it as part of their retirement income. As he puts it, it doesn’t have to be all or nothing — it can be one asset in a broader portfolio.
Moving wealth out of the business doesn’t happen in a single year. Frank explains what diversifying away from the company looks like in practice.
Frank’s first moves for an owner in exactly that spot — starting with “don’t panic” and getting clear on what retirement actually looks like.
Disability and critical illness: if you’re off work for months, how much time do you need, and what liquidity will the business need while you’re gone?
If your retirement plan currently lives entirely in “I’ll sell the business someday,” this is the episode that gets you asking the right questions before that day arrives.
This episode is general information, not tax, legal or investment advice. Frank Restorick’s comments are general in nature. Insurance and tax outcomes depend on your situation, the policy and current tax rules. Speak with your own accountant, lawyer and advisor before acting.
If most of your net worth is inside your company, it’s worth knowing what the rest of your retirement plan looks like. Book a free, no-obligation strategy call and we’ll walk through your retained earnings, your timeline, and your options.
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