Canadian Family Offices senior editor Ashley Redmond sits down with Thane Stenner, founder of Stenner Wealth Partners+ at CG Wealth Management, to tackle a deeply layered question: If you had $100 million to invest today, where would you put it?
Drawing on decades of experience advising ultra-high-net-worth families—including entrepreneurs navigating major liquidity events—Stenner explains why investing a portfolio of that size requires a very different approach from a conventional 60/40 strategy. With markets at elevated valuations, he discusses the importance of creating an investment policy statement, deploying capital gradually, and looking beyond traditional stocks and bonds for opportunities.
In his conversation with Redmond, Stenner shares:
• Why a $100-million portfolio should begin with an investment policy statement and a clearly defined deployment plan.
• Why he would consider investing new capital gradually over 12 to 24 months in the current market environment.
• How alternative investments can play a larger role in ultra-high-net-worth portfolios.
• Why he believes investors should be cautious about U.S. equities at current valuations and consider opportunities elsewhere.
• How selling a business can force entrepreneurs to adjust from controlling operating wealth to overseeing a diversified portfolio with the help of professional advisors.
• Why privacy, philanthropy and family considerations can become increasingly important following a major liquidity event.
Transcript
This transcript is provided for convenience and is based on the audio recording of the video. While efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, minor errors are possible.
Ashley: Hello, my name is Ashley Redmond, and I’m senior editor at Canadian Family Offices. Thank you for watching. Today, I’m joined by Thane Stenner, founder of Stenner Wealth Partners+ at CG Wealth Management, and former founder of Tiger 21 Canada. Thane, thank you for joining me.
Thane: My pleasure, Ashley.
Ashley: My question today is: If you had $100 million to invest today, where would you park it?
Thane: It’s actually an easy question for me to answer because we’re actually deploying capital for a founder of a company that actually sold a business recently, and they have in that range of net worth. So, the first thing I would say is they should develop an investment policy statement, which we helped them to do. It’s kind of like the architectural plans for a luxury home, or the business plan for a business. So, we develop an investment policy statement to help them understand the guidelines as to how they want us to partner with them to deploy their capital. The second thing we would do is develop a deployment plan. So why is that so important today? You know we’re mid-2026, and the markets right now are very expensive. So, the deployment plan today would actually entail likely deploying the capital over the next 12 to 24 months instead of right away. Why? Because the markets are really rich right now. So we’d want to figure out their asset mix, figure out the overall strategy they want us to deploy for them, and then we’d gradually invest the capital for them. We don’t want to put them in too fast, too quickly, because if we get a corrective phase of 10, 20, 30 per cent, we don’t want them living with regret, we don’t want the relationship starting off that way.
Ashley: I understand. And would the typical 60/40 asset allocation be applied to this?
Thane: Not to a $100 million portfolio. Typically, they and we have access to a lot of very customized solutions, ideas, strategies, quite candidly, that the normal mass affluent are not actually accessible to, so typically we’d have anywhere from 10 to 30 per cent in alternatives of different types and stripes, and the standard 60/40 blend just simply doesn’t work. It hasn’t actually worked, I think, for the last decade for this type of clientele.
Ashley: I was curious about the exposure to alts, and you did mention 10 to 30 per cent. Does that include real estate?
Thane: Alts is a big bucket, right? Alts kind of include anything that is not stocks, not bonds, not cash. Everything else kind of gets put into the alternative bucket.
Ashley: Are there any general areas that you’d avoid right now?
Thane: Well, as we sit here, Ashley, you know, mid-2026, again, having said the markets are pretty rich right now, I would be underweighting the U.S. markets right now on a go-forward basis because, candidly, based upon our research and valuations, we’re seeing that the U.S. market is literally at its all-time high in the last 100 years, so this is a cautionary time. Lots of opportunities outside the United States, outside of Canada, even. So the good news is there’s a lot of opportunities, but they’re just not in the traditional U.S. market right now.
Ashley: How does one’s life stage affect the choices here?
Thane: So if they’ve just had a liquidity event, they’ve just sold a business, for example, their life has changed a lot. So, I would say historically, if they’ve owned a business, they’ve been very used to being in control. So now the number one challenge that they would have is going from operational wealth or company wealth, illiquid wealth, to now having to work with advisors or specialists like ourselves. They’re used to previously having two hands on the wheel, so to speak, and now they’ve got one hand on the wheel, and they’ve got to delegate to specialists to then help deploy on their behalf. So they’ve kind of been bumped up from CEO to the chairman of their overall wealth. They’re still in control, but they’re not quite as in control as they normally would like to be. So education is super-important. Monthly meetings as we go through the deployment plan. It’s extremely important that they feel comfortable. They understand what we’re doing, why we’re doing it, how it fits into their grand plan of their family.
Second thing I’d say is it depends on is how much of a story it is. Some of the people we deal with are some of the most successful entrepreneurs in Canada and families in Canada, so if the story of their sale, for example, has been the front page of the Globe Mail or the National Post or local news, all of a sudden they no longer have as much privacy as they’ve had before, so we try to work within that environment for them to keep their privacy in mind.
Ashley: And Thane, I’m curious: Are there any other miscellaneous personal lifestyle factors that pop up here when you’re discussing this with clients?
Thane: Yeah, actually, it’s a lot of things. I’ve talked about this before, but as they move up the wealth curve, they go through a liquidity event like this. Now, all of a sudden, for example, they’re on every charity’s hit list. So now they’re getting pitched for philanthropy or charitable donations, and most of the families we deal with are very charitably minded, so that’s a good thing. But all of a sudden, there can be a little bit of a swarm that takes place. We try to act as the bridge for them, or as a deflective shield in some ways, to help them navigate through that. Whether it’s through a donor-advised fund, developing a philanthropic strategy for them, so that they can be as private or as public as they want to be.
Ashley: Thane, thank you for joining me today. For more family office content, visit CanadianFamilyOffices.com.
About Thane Stenner
Thane Stenner, CIM®, FCSI® is a Senior Portfolio Manager and Senior Wealth Advisor, and the founder of Stenner Wealth Partners+ at CG Wealth Management (Vancouver, BC / Toronto, ON). He is the host of Smart Wealth™ with Thane Stenner on BNN Bloomberg, and the Founding Member, Chairman Emeritus and former Managing Director of TIGER 21 Canada—the premier peer membership organization for ultra-high-net-worth individuals in Canada.
Prior to founding Stenner Wealth Partners+, Thane served as Managing Director, International Client Advisor, Institutional Consulting Director, Alternative Investments Director, and Portfolio Manager at Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, where he led the StennerZohny Group of Graystone Consulting—a division of Morgan Stanley with $336 billion USD in assets under management. His team advised on more than $20 billion USD in assets and was ranked #1 in California and #8 in all of North America on the Barron’s Top 50 Institutional Consultants list (2020). Earlier in his career, Thane held senior roles at Merrill Lynch International Private Client Group, CIBC Wood Gundy (World Markets), and Richardson GMP.
Thane has been recognized among Canada’s Top Wealth Advisors by the Globe and Mail and SHOOK Research, ranked #6 nationally on Wealth Professional’s Top 50 Advisors list, and Stenner Wealth Partners+ was named Wealth Professional’s Top Wealth Advisory Team in June 2026. He is dual-licensed under both CIRO (Canada) and FINRA (United States).
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About Stenner Wealth Partners+
Stenner Wealth Partners+ (SWP+) is an in person/virtual Multi-Family Office/Outsourced CIO Consulting team of financial/wealth specialists with a boutique approach and global perspective. SWP+ serves Canadian and US investors/households with generally a minimum of $10M+ in investable assets (or $25M+ net worth). As a CG Wealth Management team, SWP+ is a highly exclusive practice team with one of Canada’s largest independent wealth management firms. Client range of net worths: between $25M and $3B+. They strategically limit new client engagements, onboarding a select number of new key relationships annually to ensure a highly personalized and focused approach. SWP+ is a member of Canadian Family Offices.
Disclaimer: This story was created by Canadian Family Offices’ commercial content division on behalf of Stenner Wealth Partners+ at CG Wealth Management, which is a member and content provider of this publication. CG Wealth Management is a division of Canaccord Genuity Corp., member of CIPF and CIRO. Tax & Estate advice offered through Canaccord Genuity Wealth & Estate Planning Services Ltd. Thane Stenner’s views, including any recommendations, expressed in this article are his own only, and are not necessarily those of Canaccord Genuity Corp.