Selling a business is one of the few moments in a normal financial life when a very large sum lands at once. If you have just banked somewhere between €500,000 and €2 million after a trade sale, an earn-out or a management buyout, congratulations. Now comes the part nobody prepares you for: what to actually do with it. I have watched several founders through this, and the biggest risk is rarely the market. It is the queue of people who now want to manage the money for a fee.
The honest answer up front is that you do not need anything clever. A boring, low-cost portfolio of a handful of UCITS ETFs will almost certainly beat the expensive managed solution you are about to be pitched, at a fraction of the cost. What you do need is a plan for keeping the cash safe while you deploy it, a sensible split between equities and a spending buffer, and the discipline not to rush a decision this size in the first fortnight.
The fee trap: why 1% a year is enormous on this sum
The week your sale completes, the private banking arms will find you. The pitch is reassuring: a dedicated relationship manager, a bespoke portfolio, discretionary management so you never think about it. The price is usually around 1% to 1.5% a year, more once you count the underlying fund fees and product wrappers on top.
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See the full curriculum — €147, 30-day guarantee →On €1 million, 1% is €10,000 every single year, in good markets and bad, whether they beat the index or not. Most do not beat it after costs. The European regulator ESMA has published repeatedly on how ongoing charges erode retail investors’ net returns; you can read its work on fund costs and performance at the ESMA website. A broad UCITS ETF portfolio, by contrast, runs at roughly 0.15% to 0.25% all-in. On €1 million that is a difference of around €8,000 a year, and compounded over decades the gap runs well into six figures. I have written the fuller version of this maths in my wealth manager versus DIY ETF comparison, and it is the single most important thing to internalise before you sign anything.
| On a €1,000,000 portfolio | Private wealth manager | DIY UCITS ETFs |
|---|---|---|
| Typical all-in annual cost | ~1.0%–1.5% (≈ €10k–€15k) | ~0.15%–0.25% (≈ €1.5k–€2.5k) |
| Approx. cost over 20 years* | Well into the hundreds of thousands | A small fraction of that |
| What you hold | Often in-house funds, structured products | Transparent, index-tracking ETFs |
| Transparency of holdings | Variable, sometimes opaque | Full, published daily |
| Genuine value added | Advice, hand-holding, admin | You do the (simple) admin |
*Illustrative only and highly dependent on the fee and growth rate. Treat every figure here as approximate 2026-vintage and verify current charges yourself.
First, park the cash safely and do nothing
Before a single euro goes into the market, deal with deposit safety. Bank deposits across the EU are protected up to €100,000 per person, per institution, under national deposit-guarantee schemes. Two million euros in one current account is well beyond that limit, so if the bank failed you would be an unsecured creditor for the excess.
The practical fix while you decide is to spread the cash across two or three separate banking groups so each slug stays near the €100,000 guarantee, or to move it into short-dated government money market instruments where the protection comes from the underlying holdings. Money held inside a broker is protected differently again, through segregation and investor-compensation rules. The point is simply this: uninvested cash of this size is not automatically safe, and sorting that out buys you room to decide calmly. There is no prize for deploying it all in week one.
A sensible UCITS allocation
The core does not need to be complicated. For most founders the sensible spine is a single broad global equity UCITS ETF (an all-world accumulating fund) as the growth engine, plus a buffer of high-quality bonds and cash sized to near-term spending.
I think about the buffer before the equities. Work out roughly how much you need to live on and what is earmarked for near-term commitments such as tax bills, a house or a new venture. Anything you might need within three to five years has no business being in equities; keep it in short-dated bonds, a bond ETF, or cash-like instruments. The rest goes into the global equity core, which does the heavy lifting over decades. To size that split against your own spending, our UCITS ETF comparison tool and the calculators in our large-portfolio broker guide are a better starting point than any product brochure.
Resist the urge to over-diversify. Ten funds do not make you safer than two well-chosen ones; they mostly make the portfolio harder to understand and easier to fiddle with. A global equity fund plus a bond or cash sleeve is a complete portfolio for the overwhelming majority of people in your position.
Lump sum or phase it in?
At this size the lump-sum-versus-drip question feels heavier, but the logic is the same as for any amount. Historically, investing a lump sum straight away has beaten averaging the same money in over time roughly two-thirds of the time, because markets rise more often than they fall. If you can genuinely stomach the volatility, deploying the equity portion in one go is the higher-expected-return choice.
The counter-argument is behavioural, and it matters more when the sum represents your life’s work. Watching a fresh €1 million portfolio drop 15% in the first month is a very different experience from watching a €50,000 one do it. If that would push you into panic-selling, phasing the equity portion in over three to six months is reasonable insurance against your own worst instincts. Note the timeframe: months, not years. Dragging it out over two or three years mostly just means sitting in cash and losing ground to inflation. Only the equity slice is phased; the buffer stays in cash regardless.
Where to hold it: Interactive Brokers
For a portfolio in this range I keep coming back to Interactive Brokers as the practical home. Three things matter at seven figures: cost, multi-currency handling, and the strength of the entity. IBKR gives you genuinely cheap FX (around 0.03% at present, versus the 0.5% or more neobrokers often bake in), direct access to the European exchanges where UCITS ETFs trade, and multi-currency cash so you are not forced to convert everything at a bad moment.
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Just as important, it is a large, well-capitalised broker with proper investor-protection arrangements, reassuring when the balance is this big. Use whichever regulated broker you trust, and spreading the assets across two brokers, for the same reasons you spread the cash, is entirely sensible at this level.
When paying for advice is actually worth it
Going DIY on the investing does not mean going it alone on everything. There are real situations where a one-off, fee-based professional earns their keep: complex or cross-border tax, estate and succession planning, holding companies or trusts, or an earn-out with its own tax treatment. Pay for those on a flat-fee or hourly basis rather than a percentage of assets.
The distinction I hold onto is between advice and management. Paying a tax adviser a fixed fee to structure a €1.5 million exit correctly is money well spent. Paying a wealth manager 1% a year forever to hold a portfolio you could run yourself is not. Get the specialist advice, run the low-cost portfolio yourself, and verify anything tax-related with a qualified local adviser.
What I’d do
If it were my money, I would first split the cash across banks so nothing sits far above the deposit guarantee, then spend a few weeks doing nothing but thinking. I would carve out a cash-and-bond buffer covering three to five years of spending and known commitments, open an account with a serious multi-currency broker, and put the remainder into a single global equity UCITS ETF. If I felt calm I would deploy the equity portion at once; if not, I would phase it over three to six months and no longer. I would pay a tax specialist a fixed fee for the complicated parts and politely refuse every offer to manage the whole thing for a percentage. The plan is dull on purpose, and dull is what protects a windfall like this.
Frequently asked questions
Q: Should I use a private bank or wealth manager for money from a business sale?
A: For pure investment management, usually no. Their typical 1%+ annual fee is enormous on a seven-figure sum and most do not beat a cheap index portfolio after costs. Where they can add value is complex tax, estate and cross-border planning, which is better bought as a one-off fixed fee rather than an ongoing percentage of your assets.
Q: Is my cash safe while I decide what to do with the proceeds?
A: Only up to the limits. EU deposit-guarantee schemes protect roughly €100,000 per person, per bank, so a large balance in one account is exposed above that. Spread the cash across several banking groups, or move it into short-dated money market or government instruments, while you plan the deployment.
Q: Should I invest the whole lump sum at once or phase it in?
A: Historically, investing a lump sum immediately has beaten phasing the same money in about two-thirds of the time because markets tend to rise. If a large early drop would make you panic-sell, phasing the equity portion in over three to six months is reasonable insurance. Keep it to months, not years, or you just lose ground to inflation sitting in cash.
Q: What’s a sensible portfolio for €500,000 to €2 million?
A: For most people, a broad global equity UCITS ETF as the core plus a bond and cash buffer sized to three to five years of spending and known commitments. Resist over-diversifying into ten funds; two well-chosen ones do the job. Size the split to your own timeline and risk tolerance, and verify any tax-wrapper options in your country.
Q: Which broker is best for a large ETF portfolio in Europe?
A: Look for cheap FX, multi-currency support, access to European exchanges and a strong regulated entity. Interactive Brokers scores well on all four for seven-figure balances, though any serious regulated broker you trust will do. Splitting assets across two brokers is a sensible way to spread counterparty risk at this size.
Q: Do I owe tax when I invest business sale proceeds?
A: The sale itself may trigger capital-gains or other taxes depending on your country and how the deal was structured, and investing the proceeds afterwards has its own tax treatment on dividends and gains. This varies enormously across Europe, so confirm your position with a qualified local tax adviser before and after deploying the money.
This guide is part of our hub on investing a windfall, inheritance or payout — browse the full cluster for related situations.
European UCITS/ETF investor with 11+ years building a global dividend and index portfolio, and founder of Financial Expert Class. I write every guide here from first-hand experience investing across EU brokers and tax regimes — not theory. More about me →