Advice

We recognise that, at the end of the day, you decide how you manage your financial affairs. Our role is to analyse your current financial position, identify your future financial obligations, understand your aspirations and design and recommend a plan that fits your needs.

We first take an asset/ liability matching approach, looking at your likely cash flow on both the income and expenditure side out to retirement and beyond. That enables us to calculate your personal risk budget; what proportion of your assets you can afford to put at risk in search of higher growth. We also differentiate the nature of the risks we are trying to mitigate according to the length of time before you are likely to need to draw on your assets.

The outcome of this analysis apportions your assets into three distinct segments that we label Secure, Defensive and Growth:

• Secure - Assets that you expect to draw on in the next two years should be held in instruments that exhibit little volatility in terms of capital value. Cash like returns are therefore a fair reward for taking minimal risk.
• Defensive - Any assets you are likely to need between three and seven years from today ought to be held in instruments that do not have the volatility characteristic of equities. We are looking for more certainty in the capital value whilst keeping pace with inflation in terms of purchasing power value.
• Growth - Assets that will not be needed within seven years need be put to work generating real growth in excess of inflation. Investing in businesses through the equity markets is historically the best way to achieve this in the long term, although you need to be patient and prepared to ride out the inevitable ups and downs along the way.

Once we have ascertained the amount you should devote to each segment, we then help you devise an investment strategy so that you can build up a unique investment portfolio that matches your personal financial road map, incorporating all your plans and aspirations.

Having established your portfolio, we monitor and review your arrangements on two levels. First, we maintain personal contact with you and revisit our analysis and recommendation should your personal circumstances change to any significant degree. Second, we monitor the underlying investments and recommend any changes we feel you need to make as a consequence of market developments or product performance, whether historic or projected. The frequency with which you might need to make adjustments for these reasons will vary according to the preferences you express before we select the investment products we recommend for you.

Flexible Service Levels

Of course we appreciate that some clients will want to be more involved with their investment strategy than others. That’s why we cater to each client’s investment requirements on a case by case basis, listening to what the client wants and what the client needs.

Our service ranges from close and intimate guidance in building a client's portfolio to providing facilities that enable clients to choose and implement an investment strategy for themselves. Whatever the choices made, our clients can be assured that all our preferred investment partners and recommended products have been through a rigorous due diligence process.

Above all, your Wealth Manager is always available to discuss your financial affairs and any questions you might have.