Plante Moran Financial Advisors

The fiduciary arm operates within the same partnership as Plante Moran, a top-15 US accounting firm. This means tax compliance, estate planning, and portfolio management are delivered by professionals who share a common economic partnership. For business-owner clients in particular, investment decisions around concentrated stock positions, pre-sale planning, and post-liquidity portfolio construction get coordinated with the CPA preparing the corporate return — reducing the information gap that typically exists between a client's tax preparer and their wealth manager.

A centralized Chief Investment Office sets the strategic asset allocation, constructs model portfolios, and selects third-party money managers after a formal due diligence process. Individual client-facing advisors then tailor the implementation based on each family's specific tax situation, liquidity needs, and legacy objectives. The CIO group operates at the partnership level, meaning its recommendations carry the weight of the firm's broader fiduciary obligations.

No. The firm operates as a fee-only fiduciary and does not manufacture proprietary mutual funds, ETFs, or structured products. Portfolios are built using third-party institutional managers, individual securities, and direct-indexing solutions. This open-architecture structure removes the conflicts inherent in firms that both manufacture products and advise clients on portfolio construction.

Plante Moran Trust is a separately chartered trust company within the partnership that serves as corporate trustee, executor, and custodial agent. When a client family requires trust administration — whether for a generation-skipping trust, a charitable remainder trust, or estate settlement — the trust company coordinates with the financial advisory team. This dual structure allows the firm to manage both the fiduciary administration and the invested assets under a unified partnership umbrella.

The core client base consists of closely held business owners, senior executives, and multi-generational families with complex tax and planning needs. Many come to the firm through its accounting practice, making the typical relationship one that spans business advisory, personal tax preparation, estate planning, and portfolio management. The firm also advises corporate retirement plans and institutional accounts, though the high-net-worth individual and family segment forms the economic center of the practice.

Plante Moran Financial Advisors is registered as an investment adviser with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, which subjects it to a statutory fiduciary duty to act in clients' best interests. It is not a broker-dealer, and its advisors do not earn commissions on product sales. Compensation comes through asset-based fees, hourly charges, or retainer arrangements — each disclosed to clients via Form ADV Part 2.

The firm's primary offices concentrate in the Great Lakes region — Michigan, Ohio, Illinois — with additional presence in Colorado. This distribution reflects the accounting partnership's own office network. Clients benefit from in-person planning coordination across tax, trust, and investment professionals sharing the same physical offices, while portfolio management runs through the centralized CIO process regardless of individual advisor location.