Adrian C. Spitters,
CFP®, FCSI®, CEA

Adrian C. Spitters helps business owners, farmers, landowners, affluent retirees and family wealth stewards make decisions about protecting, using and passing on their wealth.

Since beginning his career in 1987, he has focused on how investments, business interests, property and family responsibilities affect one another.

As President and owner of Performance Financial Consultants Ltd., operating as PFC Wealth Solutions™, Adrian brings those decisions into one clear planning process. He helps clients establish priorities, understand risk, prepare for future income needs and coordinate the specialists required to carry the plan forward.

Known as The Son of a Dutch Farmer, Adrian was raised on a dairy farm in British Columbia’s Fraser Valley. That background shaped his practical understanding of wealth. A farm represents much more than its market value. It supports a family, requires ongoing investment and carries responsibilities that can extend across generations.

That perspective remains central to his work. For many clients, wealth is held in a business, land or property as well as investment accounts. Decisions about one can affect the others. A valuable asset may provide limited retirement income, while selling it may introduce tax considerations, change the family’s livelihood or affect plans for the next generation.

Adrian’s introduction to financial services reinforced the importance of looking beyond value alone. He wrote his Canadian Securities Course examination on the Saturday before Black Monday in October 1987. The market collapse that followed helped establish a principle that has guided his career ever since: market value and financial security are not the same.

The technology bubble, the Global Financial Crisis and subsequent economic changes strengthened his emphasis on preparation. His experience has led him to focus on access to money, manageable risk and a disciplined process that can support clients through uncertainty. He encourages planning before a market decline, business transition or family event places pressure on a decision.

These experiences helped shape Owning Assets in Order of Asset Security™, jointly developed with Peter J. Merrick, TEP®. Within The Merrick Spitters Asset Security Framework™, it examines four practical questions: who controls an asset, when it can be accessed, what it depends on and how it can continue to support the family through change.

The Five Pillars of Asset Security™ give that review a practical structure, connecting investment decisions with retirement needs, tax considerations, insurance and succession. Adrian uses the framework to identify gaps and help clients understand what each part of their wealth is intended to accomplish.

His advisory process begins with understanding the client’s priorities, income needs and family responsibilities. He considers how much wealth is tied to a business or property, what a retirement, sale or family transfer would require, and who will carry the plan forward. This includes examining liquidity: whether sufficient money will be accessible when it is needed.

Adrian then helps establish the sequence of decisions and coordinates with the appropriate portfolio managers, accountants, lawyers, insurance professionals and other specialists. Each contributes within their area of expertise, with discretionary investment management provided by independent portfolio managers under their own agreements.

Adrian remains a central point of contact as clients work through these decisions. He helps them understand specialist recommendations, consider their effects on the wider plan and revisit priorities as family, business and financial circumstances change.

Education supports Adrian’s advisory approach. He wants clients to understand the reasons behind a recommendation, the alternatives available and the trade-offs involved. He is the author of four books addressing investment advice and business and farm transitions, and co-author with Peter J. Merrick of It Starts With Gold™. Their educational publication, The Merrick Spitters Reset Report™, extends their research into ownership, asset security and long-term wealth stewardship.

Continue Exploring the Principles of Asset Security

Adrian and Peter extend the ideas introduced in It Starts With Gold™ through The Merrick Spitters Reset Report™, a complimentary weekly educational publication examining the monetary, financial and structural changes affecting the security and stewardship of wealth.

Subscribe to receive their Weekly Editorial and a complimentary digital copy of It Starts With Gold™.