[icelancer]

A very good reason to pay an personal advisor is to structure your income, existing wealth, and businesses (et al) for optimal tax avoidance and tax-advantaged growth. These are fairly nuanced topics that are hard to do on your own, so it's possible that your friend is getting advice / action along those lines.

Obviously if it's 1.5% on AUM/year for stock picking advice, it's almost certainly not worth it. But you never know.

[ed25519FUUU]

Other than perhaps tax-loss harvesting and muni bonds, my experience is that financial advisors know next to nothing about taxes. They aren’t accountants, and only know securities and derivatives and other basic investment vehicles.

They might have access to some exotic things that could be tax-advantaged, but again they aren’t accountants, and could care less what you pay on your gains.

In fact I would wager to say skillful accountants might have better investing advice for the rich than most any financial advisor.