Succession begins long before ownership changes hands.
Peter J. Merrick, TEP®
Peter J. Merrick, TEP®, is a cross-border specialist and estate planner.
Peter J. Merrick, known as The King of Main Street, has spent more than three decades working with business owners, professionals, farmers, and families.
His focus is the point where a lifetime of work must become a workable plan for the people who will carry it forward.
An owner may have built a valuable company and still have difficult decisions unresolved. Who can act if the owner cannot? Where will money come from to meet an estate obligation or buy out a partner? Who is ready to lead, and what does the owner want life to look like after stepping away? Peter helps families address those questions before a deadline makes the choices for them.
Experience across Canada and the United States
Peter built his early practice in Toronto and now lives in San Diego. He works with families whose homes, businesses, property, heirs, and obligations may be spread across Canada and the United States. A move, a business sale, or a transfer to the next generation can affect how assets are owned, how insurance is arranged, and which estate and tax questions need specialist attention.
Peter and his team help clients understand the decisions in front of them and coordinate the appropriate legal, tax, immigration, valuation and investment professionals. Peter keeps the owner’s goals, the family’s needs and the steps required to carry out a plan in view.
Planning for the people and the business
Peter and his team organise the planning work around three practical questions:
What needs protection? He examines risks to family income, business continuity, and estate liquidity, including how insurance planning in Canada or across the Canada–U.S. border may address a defined need.
How will wealth pass? He helps families coordinate ownership, beneficiaries, trusts, insurance, and estate decisions in Canada and across borders, including questions raised by U.S.-situs assets.
What happens when the owner steps away? He helps prepare for leadership and ownership succession, a possible business sale, and philanthropic goals that fit the family’s wider plan.
Peter’s succession work is informed by The Five Pillars of Succession Security™. The framework asks whether money will be available when needed, how dependent the plan is on debt, whether ownership and leadership are aligned, what reserve exists outside the business, and whether financial assets can be accessed and transferred. It gives owners and their advisers a way to find gaps while there is time to address them.
Qualifications, teaching, and writing
Peter is a Trust and Estate Practitioner (TEP®). He has taught at universities and colleges, written more than 800 published articles, and spent 18 years as a columnist for Lawyers Weekly and The Bottom Line. For two decades, he was also a regular financial, economic, and tax commentator on a major Canadian news network.
He wrote three LexisNexis professional books: ASK: Advisors Seeking Knowledge, The TASK: The Trusted Advisor’s Survival Kit, and The Essential Individual Pension Plan Handbook. He has also spoken to professional audiences about business succession and how an owner’s advisers can work together through a transition.
The second half of success
Peter’s business novel The King of Main Street draws on his lived experience and the patterns he has seen among owners and their families. He wrote it for his children and for the next generation of owners and leaders. Through a story of entrepreneurship and mentorship, it asks how judgment and responsibility can be passed on alongside ownership.
For Peter, preparing to leave a business includes preparing for the life that follows. A successor needs the ability and willingness to lead. The owner needs independence and purpose beyond day-to-day control. The family needs time for conversations that cannot be settled by a document alone.
Peter co-authored It Starts With Gold™ with Adrian C. Spitters. Together, they created The Merrick Spitters Reset Report™ to publish research and education on ownership, asset security, succession, and long-term wealth stewardship. That shared educational work complements Peter’s distinct client work through Peter J. Merrick.
Protect What You Built. Preserve the Choices Ahead.
Working with Independent Specialists
Looking at the broader Asset Security picture?
For investment coordination and broader Asset Security planning, Peter can introduce you to Adrian C. Spitters and his team. Adrian helps connect decisions about investments, income, property and insurance within a coordinated wealth plan.
Each practice is responsible for its own services, agreements and applicable disclosures. Any referral arrangement and compensation are disclosed where applicable. View relationship disclosures
Schedule a complimentary 30-minute introduction to discuss the estate, succession, insurance, or cross-border decision in front of you.
Peter J. Merrick
Cross-Border, Estate and Insurance Planning
Peter J. Merrick provides estate, succession, cross-border and insurance planning only in the applicable disclosed capacity and jurisdiction.
Insurance Advice
Insurance Processing
Insurance business is submitted and processed through MAX Financial Ltd. and applicable insurers.
Investment & Portfolio Relationships
Securities Advice
Peter J. Merrick’s role in any Axcess Capital Advisors Inc. relationship is referral-only. He is not an Axcess Dealing Representative and does not provide registration-dependent securities advice. Any securities or portfolio-management services are provided by the responsible registered person or independent portfolio manager under separate agreements.
Relationship Disclosure Information
Referral Relationship
Precious Metals Referrals
Direct precious-metals introductions may be made through Peter J. Merrick to New World Precious Metals under a separately disclosed referral arrangement.
Legal, Privacy & Disclosures
Independent Professional Relationships
PFC Wealth Solutions™ and Peter J. Merrick are separate professional practices. Each is responsible for its own services, agreements and applicable disclosures.
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