Capital Allocation Specialist · HNW Accredited Investors · Southeast
Proceeds without a plan are just a tax bill waiting to happen.
When a major liquidity event arrives—a real estate exit, a business sale, a significant equity position—the structure you put in place determines how much you actually keep. Taxes are the single largest determinant of outcomes—whether from a windfall event or the ongoing management of your investment assets. Paragon Wealth Counselors deploys a coordinated four-pillar capital allocation system built to address both.
$9.1M
Case study: real estate exit restructured across six DSTs, two private RE positions, and a 721 UPREIT—capital gains deferred at time of exchange, management burden eliminated
40 yrs
In the capital markets, beginning 1985 on the full-service side—now independent, conflict-free, and built around what the evidence actually says
4 pillars
Tax-deferred RE exits · Opportunity zones · Evidence-based liquid portfolios · Private capital and institutional insurance
Does this describe where you are right now?
These are conversations that happen every day—often too late. They don’t have to be.
Real Estate Exit
“You’re under contract—or close to it—on a property sale.”
You’ve had a conversation with your CPA about what you’ll owe. What may not have come up yet is whether there’s a structure that defers that liability—without requiring you to find a replacement property, take on new management responsibilities, or navigate an exchange market where the right asset at the right price may not exist right now.
Business Sale
“You built something over decades. The sale could be the largest taxable event of your financial life.”
A business sale generates capital gains that don’t qualify for a 1031 exchange—there is no like-kind replacement available. For many owners, this means a tax bill that can consume 30–40% or more of the proceeds in a single year. What most don’t know before the closing is that Qualified Opportunity Zone funds are specifically designed for this moment: only the gain needs to be reinvested—not the full proceeds—the cost basis comes back immediately, and the deferred gain has the potential to be excluded entirely after the required holding period. The window is 180 days from the date of sale. The conversation needs to happen before it opens—not after it closes.
Tired of Managing Your Properties
“You own appreciated real estate and you’re ready to be done managing it.”
The management, the tenants, the demands that come with it. But the tax exposure from an outright sale has kept you holding longer than you wanted to. What may not be on your radar is that there are institutional, passive alternatives on the other side of that sale—structures that let you exit, defer the gain, and receive income from professionally managed real estate without ever taking on another property or another tenant.
Your Investment Portfolio
“You have a portfolio. You’re not entirely sure it’s working the way it should.”
The strategy sounded rigorous, but performance has been inconsistent, fees are real, and answers feel like opinion rather than evidence. A century of research across 30,000 listed companies identifies where long-term wealth is created—and how concentrated it is. There is a better-evidenced way to build it.
Your Portfolio Structure
“Your portfolio captures market returns. The question is what happens when the market doesn’t.“
An evidence-based liquid portfolio is the right foundation, but daily-liquid securities don’t provide genuine non-correlation in a real downturn—correlations converge. Genuinely non-correlated return streams come from a different category: private, illiquid by design, available only to accredited investors.
Your Tax Ceiling
“Your CPA has done everything possible to maximize the tax code to your advantage. And you still face a significant liability.“
There is a ceiling to what tax planning alone can accomplish. Select private investment structures exist beyond that ceiling—designed to reduce taxable income in the year it’s created. The window is typically the calendar year the income is generated. The conversation needs to happen before it closes.
Does this describe where you are right now?
These are conversations that happen every day—often too late. They don’t have to be.
Real Estate Exit
“You’re under contract—or close to it—on a property sale.”
You’ve had a conversation with your CPA about what you’ll owe. What may not have come up yet is whether there’s a structure that defers that liability—without requiring you to find a replacement property, take on new management responsibilities, or navigate an exchange market where the right asset at the right price may not exist right now.
Business Sale
“You built something over decades. The sale could be the largest taxable event of your financial life.”
A business sale generates capital gains that don’t qualify for a 1031 exchange—there is no like-kind replacement available. For many owners, this means a tax bill that can consume 30–40% or more of the proceeds in a single year. What most don’t know before the closing is that Qualified Opportunity Zone funds are specifically designed for this moment: only the gain needs to be reinvested—not the full proceeds—the cost basis comes back immediately, and the deferred gain has the potential to be excluded entirely after the required holding period. The window is 180 days from the date of sale. The conversation needs to happen before it opens—not after it closes.
Tired of Managing Your Properties
“You own appreciated real estate and you’re ready to be done managing it.”
The management, the tenants, the demands that come with it. But the tax exposure from an outright sale has kept you holding longer than you wanted to. What may not be on your radar is that there are institutional, passive alternatives on the other side of that sale—structures that let you exit, defer the gain, and receive income from professionally managed real estate without ever taking on another property or another tenant.
Your Investment Portfolio
“You have a portfolio. You’re not entirely sure it’s working the way it should.”
The strategy sounded rigorous, but performance has been inconsistent, fees are real, and answers feel like opinion rather than evidence. A century of research across 30,000 listed companies identifies where long-term wealth is created—and how concentrated it is. There is a better-evidenced way to build it.
Your Portfolio Structure
“Your portfolio captures market returns. The question is what happens when the market doesn’t.“
An evidence-based liquid portfolio is the right foundation, but daily-liquid securities don’t provide genuine non-correlation in a real downturn—correlations converge. Genuinely non-correlated return streams come from a different category: private, illiquid by design, available only to accredited investors.
Your Tax Ceiling
“Your CPA has done everything possible to maximize the tax code to your advantage. And you still face a significant liability.“
There is a ceiling to what tax planning alone can accomplish. Select private investment structures exist beyond that ceiling—designed to reduce taxable income in the year it’s created. The window is typically the calendar year the income is generated. The conversation needs to happen before it closes.
The Paragon Philosophy
Capital allocation for high-net-worth accredited investors navigating major liquidity events in the Southeast and beyond.
Capital allocation is a specialty. Major liquidity events are where it matters most.
Every major capital decision produces two numbers—what the transaction generates and what the investor actually keeps. For most high-net-worth investors, the gap between those two numbers is determined more by tax structure than anything else. Every pillar of this framework exists to close that gap.
Financial planning addresses a broad range of goals—retirement income, cash flow, estate structure. But there are moments in a client’s financial life where planning alone reaches its limits. A major capital event—a real estate exit, a business sale, a concentrated equity position—creates a narrow window where structure, tax strategy, and capital deployment must work together precisely. That is where this practice is focused.
High-net-worth accredited investors navigating major capital events face a narrow and consequential window—when real estate exits, when a business sells, when a significant equity position liquefies. The structure deployed in that window can permanently change a financial trajectory. The wrong structure—or no structure at all—can cost more in a single year than most people accumulate in a decade.
Paragon Wealth Counselors was built on a premise shaped by 40 years in the capital markets: structure matters more than prediction, taxes are often the single largest determinant of outcomes, and behavior—not intelligence—is usually the deciding factor in whether wealth actually compounds over time.
Paragon is organized around four coordinated pillars. Each addresses a different capital pocket and a different tax exposure. Together, they form a system where every component serves a specific purpose—and where the coordination between them is what creates outcomes that individual products or strategies alone cannot achieve.
Before your next decision, consider
How much of your proceeds will you actually keep after taxes?
Is your current structure aligned with how wealth is actually created over time?
Do you have a capital specialist at the table before the transaction closes—or after?
The Paragon Philosophy
Capital allocation for high-net-worth accredited investors navigating major liquidity events in the Southeast and beyond.
Capital allocation is a specialty. Major liquidity events are where it matters most.
Every major capital decision produces two numbers—what the transaction generates and what the investor actually keeps. For most high-net-worth investors, the gap between those two numbers is determined more by tax structure than anything else. Every pillar of this framework exists to close that gap.
Financial planning addresses a broad range of goals—retirement income, cash flow, estate structure. But there are moments in a client’s financial life where planning alone reaches its limits. A major capital event—a real estate exit, a business sale, a concentrated equity position—creates a narrow window where structure, tax strategy, and capital deployment must work together precisely. That is where this practice is focused.
High-net-worth accredited investors navigating major capital events face a narrow and consequential window—when real estate exits, when a business sells, when a significant equity position liquefies. The structure deployed in that window can permanently change a financial trajectory. The wrong structure—or no structure at all—can cost more in a single year than most people accumulate in a decade.
Paragon Wealth Counselors was built on a premise shaped by 40 years in the capital markets: structure matters more than prediction, taxes are often the single largest determinant of outcomes, and behavior—not intelligence—is usually the deciding factor in whether wealth actually compounds over time.
Paragon is organized around four coordinated pillars. Each addresses a different capital pocket and a different tax exposure. Together, they form a system where every component serves a specific purpose—and where the coordination between them is what creates outcomes that individual products or strategies alone cannot achieve.
Before your next decision, consider
How much of your proceeds will you actually keep after taxes?
Is your current structure aligned with how wealth is actually created over time?
Do you have a capital specialist at the table before the transaction closes—or after?
The Paragon Framework
Four pillars. One coordinated architecture.
Each pillar addresses a specific capital pocket and tax exposure. The power is in how they work together—not in any single strategy deployed in isolation.
Real Estate Capital Events
Tax-Deferred Real Estate Exits
1031 exchanges, Delaware Statutory Trusts, and 721 UPREIT structures for clients exiting appreciated real estate. We coordinate the exchange, deploy into institutional-quality diversified holdings, and engineer UPREIT conversions where appropriate—deferring or eliminating capital gains and depreciation recapture while repositioning from active operator to passive institutional investor. Every DST offering deployed has cleared an institutional multi-layer due diligence process including independent third-party review and investment committee approval.
Due diligence conducted through DAI Securities, LLC.
1031 ExchangeDelaware Statutory Trusts721 UPREIT ConversionPrivate Market REDepreciation Recapture Mgmt
Non-RE Capital Gains Events
Qualified Opportunity Zones
For business sales, significant equity events, and non-real estate capital gains—and for situations where a 1031 window has closed. Qualified Opportunity Zone funds defer the original gain, potentially exclude appreciation from capital gains taxation after the required holding period, and offer more flexibility than a traditional exchange—with no like-kind requirement and no full-proceeds reinvestment rule.
QOZ Fund DeploymentBusiness Sale ProceedsBusted Exchange Recovery10-Year Basis Step-UpGain-Only Reinvestment
Daily Liquid AUM
Evidence-Based Liquid Portfolio
A century of academic research across 30,000 publicly listed companies demonstrates that long-term market wealth is not evenly distributed—it flows from a small minority of companies that emerge over time and compound over decades.¹ The practical implication is that portfolio structure, not security selection, determines whether an investor participates in that wealth creation. We build liquid portfolios aligned with how markets actually work—capturing broad index exposure across market capitalizations and geographies, with an evidence-based framework and a disciplined tax-management overlay. Structure over prediction.
¹ Bessembinder, H. “Do Stocks Outperform Treasury Bills?” Journal of Financial Economics, 2018.
Evidence-Based Structure Broad Market ParticipationTax-Managed ImplementationLong-Term Compounding FocusBehavioral Discipline
Private Capital & Insurance
Non-Correlated & Tax-Advantaged Compounding
Stocks and bonds have historically provided balance in a portfolio—but in periods of market stress, they can become correlated at exactly the moments you need diversification most. Carefully selected private investments offer return streams that behave differently from public markets—and many carry tax characteristics that public market investments simply cannot replicate: income that is tax-deferred, income that may be tax-advantaged, and in certain structures, the potential to reduce taxable income in the year of investment. These characteristics are evaluated individually and deployed where they genuinely fit a client’s tax picture. Every private offering deployed has cleared a rigorous institutional due diligence process—People, Philosophy, Process, and Performance—with ongoing monitoring for the life of the investment. Alongside this, institutional-grade high cash value life insurance structures provide a long-term accumulation vehicle: after-tax dollars grow on a tax-deferred basis, with access through policy loans generally not treated as taxable income when the policy remains in force.
Alternative investment due diligence conducted through DAI Securities, LLC.
Reg D Private PlacementInterval FundsTax-Advantaged Income StructuresPotential Current Deduction StrategiesHigh Cash Value InsuranceTax-Deferred Accumulation
Real-World Outcomes
What coordinated capital allocation looks like in practice.
These are not hypothetical projections. They are real situations, real structures, and real outcomes for accredited investors navigating major capital events.
Real Estate Capital Event · 1031 / DST / Private RE / 721 UPREIT
$9.1 Million Exit. Zero Capital Gains. Transformed Structure.
A Southeast real estate investor sought to exit a single concentrated, operationally demanding property—roughly $7.6 million in equity and $1.5 million in existing debt. The objective was not simply to defer taxes. It was to improve income, eliminate the landlord burden, diversify into multiple asset types, and create a more flexible long-term structure.
Rather than a traditional one-for-one exchange into another active property, the capital was restructured across multiple coordinated components within the IRS identification and closing windows:
Capital Deployment Breakdown
DST Allocation
6 Properties
Diversified across multiple institutional-quality DST holdings—passive income engine generating approximately $176,000 annually at ~4.7% yield on equity
—
Private Real Estate
~$3.85M
Two strategic private market RE positions—one income-producing, one growth-oriented—blended yield with reduced leverage exposure
—
721 UPREIT Position
~$1.7M
Positioned for future liquidity within a 2–3 year window—carryover basis preserved, timing of future gain recognition controlled by client
The result was a complete transformation—not just of the tax outcome, but of the structure and function of the capital itself:
$0
Capital gains recognized at time of sale
$176K
Annual passive income from DST portfolio
1 → 9+
Concentrated asset transformed into diversified institutional holdings
Active → Passive
Management burden eliminated entirely
Illustrative of an actual client engagement. Individual results will vary. Past results are not indicative of future performance. Available to accredited investors only.
Busted Exchange Recovery · Multi-Fund Qualified Opportunity Zone Deployment
The 45-Day Window Closed. The Client Kept Their Basis and Deferred the Gain.
A client came to us after the 45-day identification window on a 1031 exchange had expired without a suitable replacement property identified. The conventional outcome is both straightforward and painful: recognize the full capital gain and write the check to the IRS. The conventional response is to recognize the gain and move forward.
We deployed a structure that many investors and their advisors don’t immediately consider in this situation. Under QOZ rules, only the gain portion of a sale must be invested to achieve deferral. The client’s original sale generated $1,150,000 in capital gain. The cost basis—not subject to the QOZ reinvestment requirement—was retained by the client outright and available immediately.
The $1,150,000 gain was then strategically divided across three separate Qualified Opportunity Zone funds—providing diversification across different development strategies, geographies, and risk profiles within the QOZ universe.
How the QOZ Deployment Was Structured
Client Retained (Basis)
Tax-Free
The cost basis portion of the sale proceeds was kept by the client outright—not subject to capital gains reinvestment requirements, available immediately
—
Gain Invested Across
3 QOZ Funds
$1,150,000 in capital gain divided across three separate funds—different strategies, geographies, and development profiles—providing QOZ-level diversification
—
Tax on Appreciation
Potentially $0
All appreciation generated inside each QOZ fund is excluded from capital gains taxation if held through the required 10-year period
The structural advantage over what would have been a fully taxable event—or even a completed 1031 exchange—was significant. A missed deadline became a superior outcome. The client held their basis proceeds free and clear, deferred the entire gain across three diversified funds, and positioned each for potential appreciation that may be excluded from capital gains taxation after the required holding period. The IRS clock that seemed like a crisis became the entry point for a better long-term structure.
$1.15M
Capital gain deferred—zero tax owed at time of the missed deadline
3 Funds
Gain diversified across three separate QOZ funds—different strategies and markets
Basis Kept
Client retained cost basis proceeds outright—not subject to QOZ reinvestment requirement, available immediately—
10 yrs
Holding period after which all fund appreciation is potentially excluded from capital gains
Illustrative of an actual client engagement. QOZ investments involve significant risk, illiquidity, and development risk, and are available to accredited investors only. Tax outcomes depend on holding period, fund structure, legislative status, and applicable law at time of recognition. The investor’s basis proceeds were not subject to QOZ reinvestment requirements. Consult a qualified tax professional before making any investment or tax decision.
Want a deeper look at how each pillar works—the mechanics, the structures, and the academic foundation behind them?
For Professional Referral Partners
We make your expertise more valuable to your clients.
Paragon Wealth Counselors works alongside CPAs, estate and real estate attorneys, and commercial brokers as a capital deployment specialist—always collaborating, never competing. Your client relationship is always yours.
Why these solutions aren't always on the table
The capital structures Paragon deploys live at the intersection of tax law, securities regulation, and real estate—three distinct professional worlds. A CPA’s expertise is the tax code itself—understanding what is owed, why, and how to plan around it. Knowing the full universe of investment structures that operate within that code isn’t what their practice is designed or required to provide. An estate attorney is expert in the legal architecture of wealth transfer—and knows firsthand the friction that arises when heirs have different needs around a shared property. The capital structure that resolves that friction cleanly isn’t their domain to carry. A real estate professional’s expertise is the transaction—and the institutional passive solution that makes a reluctant seller willing to list in the first place lives on the other side of what they’re asked to know.
None of that is a gap. It’s specialization—and it’s exactly how it should work. What it creates is an opportunity to build a more complete team around a client at a critical moment. Paragon’s role is to work alongside the professionals already in place—bringing capital structures that complement their expertise and extend what’s possible for the clients they share. The best outcomes happen when every professional at the table is working from a complete picture.
For CPAs
When your client is facing a major capital event—a real estate exit, a business sale, a significant equity position—the tax exposure is often the single largest variable in their outcome. We work alongside you to deploy the right capital structure before the taxable event closes: 1031 exchanges, Delaware Statutory Trusts, 721 UPREIT conversions, and Qualified Opportunity Zone funds for non-real estate gains. Where appropriate, certain private investments may also offer deduction characteristics worth exploring in the context of your client’s overall tax picture.
Beyond the capital event itself, we manage the ongoing liquid portfolio with a tax-alpha focus—stock-level tax-loss harvesting through direct indexing that generates realized losses to offset gains you are already managing. We work in the same direction you are, not against it.
The most valuable conversations happen before the transaction closes—when the options are widest and the tax clock has not yet started. The earlier you bring us in, the more tools are available. We complement your planning, never compete with it. Your client remains yours.
For Estate & RE Attorneys
Our structures address one of the most persistent sources of estate friction: what happens to real property when heirs have different objectives. A 1031 exchange into a Delaware Statutory Trust—or a 721 UPREIT conversion—transforms an illiquid, indivisible asset into divisible, professionally managed interests. The heir who wants passive income holds their DST position. The heir who wants continued real estate exposure holds their OP units. The heir who needs liquidity pursues that path independently—without forcing a distressed sale or years of contentious co-ownership.
For business sale transactions, Qualified Opportunity Zone funds provide a parallel solution where a 1031 is not available. Only the capital gain—not the full proceeds—requires reinvestment. A client selling a business keeps their cost basis entirely and deploys only the gain into a QOZ fund, deferring the tax and potentially excluding all appreciation after the required holding period. The clock starts at closing, which means the conversation needs to happen before the transaction finalizes—exactly when you are already at the table.
These are estate planning and wealth preservation tools, not just tax deferral vehicles. We come to the table deadline-aware and document-ready, work entirely within your structure, and make the process cleaner for you and your clients at every stage.
For Commercial RE Brokers
Some of your best listings and sales don’t exist yet—because the owner doesn’t know they can sell. Many commercial property owners are holding assets they’d willingly exit if they understood that a 1031 exchange into a Delaware Statutory Trust can defer the capital gains entirely, eliminate the management burden, and generate reliable passive income from institutional-quality real estate. We help you start those conversations.
The result is more listings from owners who previously said no, and more closed transactions from clients who now have a clear path forward. And when a client completes an exchange and is satisfied with the outcome, they refer—which means your pipeline grows from the same transaction that closed.
We bring the capital structure expertise while you manage the real estate relationship. We collaborate throughout and never step between you and your client. The relationship is always yours.
"What changes outcomes at major capital events isn't one advisor doing more—it's the right professionals working together from a complete picture. Paragon exists to provide that missing piece: the capital structures that extend what every other professional at the table can offer their clients."
— Jimmy Goolsby, President, Paragon Wealth Counselors
For HNW Accredited Investors—Direct
Already know you need this conversation?
Paragon works directly with high-net-worth accredited investors—no referral required. If any of the following describes where you are, the conversation starts here.
“My portfolio is built on opinion and active management—I want it built on evidence instead.”
“My portfolio is stocks and bonds — but when markets fell hard, everything fell together.”
“My CPA has maximized the tax code—and I still face a significant liability. I need to know what else is available.”
“I’m facing a capital event and need a specialist at the table before it closes—not after.”
What to Expect
A focused conversation—not a sales presentation.
The first conversation is about your specific situation—the event, the timing, the tax exposure, and whether the structures Paragon deploys are genuinely applicable. If they are, the next steps are clear. If they aren’t, that will be said directly. The goal is the right outcome for your capital—not a transaction.
Ready to Start
The window that matters most is the one that’s open right now.
Whether the event is imminent or still months away, the earlier the conversation happens, the more options are on the table. Capital allocation decisions are time-sensitive—and the right structure deployed early changes outcomes that can’t be changed later.
About Jimmy Goolsby, PRESIDENT & FOUNDER
Four decades of capital markets experience. Built around the moments that define outcomes.
Paragon was founded by Jimmy Goolsby, who entered the capital markets in 1985 on the full-service side—four decades of market cycles, product cycles, and complex client situations have shaped a clear conviction: the outcomes that matter most are driven by structure, tax discipline, and the quality of advice at critical inflection points—not by products.
The practice was built around a single premise the evidence confirms: high-net-worth investors navigating major capital events deserve a specialist, not a generalist. One who knows the 1031 and DST ecosystem, the UPREIT and 721 landscape, the QOZ fund market, the Reg D private placement universe, and institutional-grade insurance structures—and can deploy them in a coordinated system where every component serves a purpose.
The practice grows primarily through referrals from CPAs, attorneys, real estate professionals, and clients who value a more intentional approach to capital allocation at major financial inflection points. Earning that trust—from professionals who send their most important clients—is the standard this practice is held to.
The practice operates as a hybrid RIA and BD-registered advisory firm—fiduciary management of liquid AUM alongside full access to the alternative and insurance structures where the most consequential capital tools actually live. Clients receive the structure appropriate for each capital pocket—not the product that fits an advisor’s business model.
Based in Atlanta and primarily serving the Southeast—though major capital events don’t respect geography, and neither does this work.
Experience
• 40 years in the capital markets
• Full-service side since 1985
• Independent since 2020
Registration
Securities: DAI Securities, LLC, Member FINRA/SIPC
Advisory: DAI Wealth, LLC, SEC Registered Investment Adviser
Background and Experience: BrokerCheck
DAI Securities and DAI Wealth are separate but affiliated entities
Client Profile
HNW accredited investors navigating major liquidity & capital events
Referral Partners
CPAs · Estate attorneys · RE attorneys · Commercial brokers · Transaction advisors
About Andrea Barber, Client Services Manager
Andrea has extensive experience in working with financial advisors as a wealth management assistant defines the way she approaches her role in advisor support, guiding clients every step of their journey, from creating paperwork for new accounts to fortifying client relations. In her relationships with clients, she goes above and beyond simply addressing their planning and account needs. They share their lives and family stories with her. Andrea is also responsible for coordinating and tracking client transactions and assisting in the management of day-to-day business and investment needs. Andrea loves the outdoors and spending time with her family—going to lakes in the summer and enjoying the simple life.
Our Partners
An independent firm, supported by institutional architecture.
Paragon is a boutique specialist firm—capital allocators focused on the tax events that define a client’s financial life. Independence is our advantage: free of any single institution’s shelf, we curate a team of best-of-breed partners and put rigorous, independent due diligence behind everything we recommend.
We build none of these solutions ourselves—and that is the point.
As an independent boutique, Paragon has no proprietary products or house funds to favor. Every custodian, platform, and specialist on this page was carefully curated and held at arm’s length—selected on our clients’ behalf, against a single, exacting standard. We manufacture nothing—we work only with the independent institutional sponsors whose solutions we judge best of breed for the client. You may see some firms promote proprietary products of their own; in some instances, a closer look reveals structures tilted toward the firm’s profitability in ways that can drag on the investor’s net return. Behind our discipline stands real institutional structure—a broker-dealer and registered investment adviser providing supervision and independent due diligence, an institutional portfolio platform, deep insurance-carrier access, and qualified custodians safeguarding every dollar.
A point worth stating plainly: Paragon never takes possession of client funds. Assets are held in the client’s name at independent qualified custodians, who deliver statements directly. We direct strategy; they hold and report.
A Carefully Curated Team
Five partners · five functions
Broker-Dealer, RIA & Due Diligence
DAI
DAI Securities, LLC · DAI Wealth, LLC
Paragon conducts business through DAI—DAI Securities, LLC as broker-dealer and DAI Wealth, LLC as the SEC-registered investment adviser. Independent and Atlanta-based, DAI supplies the supervisory, compliance, technology, and operational framework that underpins the entire practice.
Most consequential for the work we do: before any private placement, Delaware Statutory Trust, or Opportunity Zone fund reaches a Paragon client, it passes through DAI’s rigorous, independent due-diligence review—sponsor track record, deal structure, fee load, and risk examined on the client’s behalf. That independent gatekeeping is the structural backbone of how we protect the families we serve, and a discipline a boutique firm could never replicate alone.
Direct Indexing & Tax Management
Adhesion Wealth
An AssetMark company · SEC-registered adviser
Paragon’s evidence-based, direct-indexed portfolios run on Adhesion Wealth, an institutional managed-account platform. Adhesion supplies the overlay management, trading, and rebalancing technology—together with the direct-index construction and tax-management tools, such as tax-loss harvesting and tax-aware transitions, that let us personalize portfolios at the level of individual securities.
It is the institutional machinery that makes a disciplined, tax-conscious approach to public markets practical for a boutique firm—intellectual capital ordinarily reserved for the largest managers.
Insurance & Protection
Alpine Brokerage Group
Independent brokerage general agency
When a plan calls for principal protection, guaranteed income, long-term-care coverage, or legacy solutions, Paragon accesses the insurance market through Alpine Brokerage Group, an independent agency with contracts across more than fifty carriers spanning life, annuity, long-term care, and disability.
That breadth—paired with Alpine’s advanced underwriting and case-design support—means recommendations are shaped by the client’s situation rather than any single carrier’s shelf.
Custody & Clearing
Fidelity
Fidelity Clearing & Custody Solutions
Paragon’s liquid, evidence-based portfolios are custodied at Fidelity, one of the world’s largest financial organizations, which provides the custody, trade execution, reporting, and technology infrastructure beneath the day-to-day management of client accounts.
Client assets are held in the client’s own name, and statements are issued directly by Fidelity—keeping safekeeping cleanly separate from the advice Paragon provides.
Alternative & Private-Placement Custody
CNB Custody
A division of Community National Bank
Private placements and tax-deferred real estate strategies call for a custodian built specifically for alternative assets. For Regulation D offerings, Delaware Statutory Trusts, and 1031/721 exchange interests—including those held inside IRAs and other non-qualified accounts—Paragon works with CNB Custody.
CNB has specialized in the custody of alternative and illiquid investments for more than three decades, holds billions in assets under custody, and is known for responsive, hands-on service from a live, accessible team.
Important Disclosures
Fidelity (Fidelity Clearing & Custody Solutions), CNB Custody (a division of Community National Bank), Adhesion Wealth, and Alpine Brokerage Group are independent firms and are not affiliated with Paragon Wealth Counselors, DAI Securities, LLC, or DAI Wealth, LLC. Each is responsible for its own products and services. Custodians hold and report on client assets; they neither endorse Paragon nor supervise the advice Paragon provides. References to these firms describe Paragon’s working relationships and are not an endorsement or recommendation.
Investing involves risk, including the possible loss of principal. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Alternative and private investments, including Regulation D offerings, Delaware Statutory Trusts, and 1031/721 exchange structures, are available only to qualified or accredited investors and involve additional risks, including illiquidity and loss of principal. Insurance and annuity guarantees are subject to the claims-paying ability of the issuing carrier. Nothing on this page is tax or legal advice; clients should consult their own tax and legal advisors.
Every major capital event has a window—for the right tax structure and the right capital deployment.
Let’s talk before yours closes.
Capital allocation decisions are time-sensitive. The 45-day identification clock, the QOZ investment window, the gain recognition date—these are real deadlines with real consequences. Whether you’re a professional with a client referral or an investor navigating a major event, the conversation should happen early.
South Office · Primary
62 Macon Street, Suite 8
McDonough, GA 30253
North Office · Atlanta
3495 Piedmont Road NE
Building 10, Suite 115
Atlanta, GA 30305