How We Work

People seek financial advice for many different reasons so it’s important that we understand exactly who you are and what you want to achieve. At our first meeting we’ll gather information about you to help define your needs and priorities.

We will meet with you face-to-face, via Web meeting or telephone conference to capture important information about your current circumstances, your financial history, and your aspirations, priorities, and objectives in terms of your financial future. We will also discuss your attitude towards “investment risk”, and your understanding of how such risk may affect you. This will take approximately 2 hours.

You should provide us with any information requested to enable us to deliver the appropriate advice and services required. It is important that you do not unreasonably withhold any information. Please note that all advice provided will be based on the information given.

The consultation will close with a summary of our findings, and our suggested next steps toward a tailored, yet realistic, solution to your needs. There is no obligation to proceed at this stage, and no costs will have been incurred.

The simple analogy here is ‘what if your boiler breaks down?’. You would likely call an expert around to assess the situation and provide a recommended course of action and the associated costs. It is your decision as to whether you then proceed.

Should you decide to proceed, further to our initial meeting, we will ask you to formalise your permission for us to commence chargeable work for you by signing our Client Agreement. At this stage, we will begin to undertake the process of thoroughly analysing your current position based on our extensive knowledge of financial markets, and diligently researching potential solutions for your needs.

Should we need to consult with any professional advisers or financial services providers with whom you have an agreement, we will ask for your express consent to do so.

There are different styles of investment, and a summary of them can be found within our document called ‘Investment Philosophy’. For example, you may prefer to keep the costs of investing down and opt for ‘passive’ investments which offer lower priced funds but with little or no active management. On the other hand, you may prefer to pay for a slightly more costly fund that offers an element of active management. You may even prefer to utilise a blend of each strategy.

Overlaying this is any ethical preference that you may have. We will consider your preferences as agreed in our Preliminary Consultation when providing our advice.

Where suitable, we may recommend a third-party discretionary fund management service to run your investments on a discretionary basis, this means that your portfolio will run in real time as there is no need to advise you every time an underlying change needs to be made. The obvious benefit of this approach is that trading can be done easily and efficiently and dealing charges will, in most cases be reduced.

If we do decide to work with a Discretionary Fund Manager (DFM), we would undertake appropriate due diligence in recommending a DFM service that we believe best meets your needs and objectives. Where applicable, attending initial meetings with you and the DFM and ensuring that your relationship with the DFM is established correctly. This will not be applicable where the service offered is a model portfolio service.

Where a full advice option has been agreed, we aim to provide all our clients with full and comprehensive advice rather than limiting it to one area of financial planning. This means that we will consider how all your plans and investments overlap and interact with one another to formulate the most efficient strategy for your needs. This can be concisely summarised by the phrase “the whole is more than the sum of its parts”.

To construct an all-encompassing financial plan for our clients, we will consider Protection (Income Protection and Life/Critical illness), Retirement options (Pensions, Drawdown and Annuities) Investment, Savings and Mortgages (combined with some forms of Taxation and Trusts) with a full advice proposition.

When we have all the information we require, a full Financial Planning Report will be devised to paint a clear picture of your current position and outline a clear and thoroughly researched recommendation for the solution we believe to be in your best interests. We will discuss our recommendations in full and take you through our report step-by-step. We refer to this report as a ‘suitability report’ as it notes our recommendations that we feel are suitable to you.

The report will detail your current position and will present our professional observations in each agreed area. By examining these observations against your stated objectives, we will recommend the actions we believe will, if followed, reduce the barriers to your objectives, minimise any risks we have identified and maximise the opportunities for achieving your stated goals.

These action points may cover various time horizons, including immediate implementations and considerations for the future, dependent on any known or foreseeable events.

The report will also contain the reasons behind the recommendations together with other relevant information including where applicable, illustrations and product brochures (incorporating key features documents). Should you have any questions on any elements of the report please do ask as it is important you understand the reasons for the recommendations and how the proposed solutions work.

Depending on what we agree together, you will either be sent the report for your review, or we will arrange to meet again and discuss its contents. Where applicable, the second meeting will typically last between one and two hours, depending on the complexity of your situation. Again, you may wish to include other parties such as spouse/partner, children, or other professional advisers. You are free to take the report away and give consideration before agreeing to move forward to the next stage.

Once you feel that you can make a fully informed decision to proceed, and you have given us your consent to do so, we will begin the process of implementing our recommendations. We will assist you in completing all the relevant forms and ensuring your applications are processed by the relevant investment houses and providers in a timely manner.

If subsequent meetings are required, this will be discussed and agreed. Where this is not necessary, once we have received your instructions, generally in the form of completed applications and investment sums, these will be transmitted to the relevant providers, or we will process them online where applicable.

Details of any transactions undertaken through us will be recorded on our back-office system.

The scope and type of ongoing service we will be providing to you and what will be included is agreed at this stage. We will also agree the charges for providing this service and again whether they will be subject to VAT.

Depending on the size and complexity of your portfolio once in place, you may or may not require ongoing review services. These services are optional, and once implemented, can be cancelled should our ongoing review services no longer be required. It is important to be aware that, in the absence of a specific agreement to provide you with ongoing services, your portfolio will not be monitored unless you contact us to ask for a specific service.

A review would typically include;