Wealth Management Services – Planning is a Process

The overall aim of the Wealth Management process is to help you reach your financial goals and develop or maintain your desired lifestyle, in the most efficient way possible. Wealth Management gives consideration to strategies for the creation, distribution or protection of wealth specifically to meet your financial objectives.

If the process is strictly followed, the chances of meeting your objectives and achieving Financial Independence will be considerably improved.

Stage 1 – Initial Consultation Meeting
The starting point is to understand fully your current personal circumstances, current financial situation and how you have arrived there. We do this in our initial consultation meeting where we will consider your values, objectives and goals, your relationships with your family, your work or business and your existing advisers. We also look at your tax position and your investments so that we can appraise how appropriate they are in relation to your financial planning objectives. We will finally carry out a risk profile with you to give us an initial indication of the level of investment risk that you are comfortable with.

Stage 2 – Information Gathering, Risk profiling and Clarification of Priorities and Objectives
Subject to your approval, we will then gather and collate all of your financial information from a combination of the information you can provide and by writing directly to the investment providers where appropriate. We then put in writing to you what we think your goals, objectives and priorities are, and then clarify objectives, concerns and aspirations as well as clarifying your attitude to investment and other risks. This is one of the most important aspects to determine, as it will be critical to investment portfolio construction. We take the explanation and understanding by clients of investment risk extremely seriously as we know we are dealing with your financial future and it is essential that you make an informed decision. We use various techniques to show you the risk and reward relationship between different asset allocations and risk profiles and explain the likely outcomes for your natural risk tolerance. We then compare these to the risks (both investment and tax risks) you are already taking with your existing portfolio and alternative risk profiles before a final asset allocation is agreed. We do not simply proceed with your initial indication or risk profile, as experience has shown us that this is very often unreliable. Please see an example of our risk profile questionnaire in the documents for download section.

Stage 3 – Agree an Asset and Tax Wrapper Allocation
Once the asset allocation is agreed, Stage three will analyse your assets, investments, liabilities short, medium and long term, expenditure and income. Taking all these factors into account, a proposal for the construction of your asset allocation with the appropriate tax wrappers will be made to ensure that as far as possible the appropriate asset are held in the most tax efficient tax wrapper from an Income Tax, Capital Gains Tax and Inheritance Tax perspective. This may involve investing in a number of the following tax wrappers:- PEP, ISA, Pension, Offshore or Onshore investment bond, Venture Capital Trust etc. Most Financial planners miss this important stage out and simply apply the whole asset allocation to each tax wrapper. We believe that this is not appropriate, as for example, some tax wrappers can provide income more tax efficiently than others, whereas some are better at sheltering Capital Gains. Your Wealth Management Plan can cover the effective and efficient distribution of assets on death, in accordance with your wishes.

Stage 4 – Implement Plan and Investments
The fourth stage of the process is to implement the plan. This stage includes an action plan and if appropriate an investment implementation document, both of which will be provided once we have agreed the plan.

Stage 5 – Review and Rebalance
The final stage is to regularly review the plan and make modifications where required. Reviews should take place at least annually, but can be more frequent if required. The review process allows us to remind you of the decisions you have made, answer any queries or concerns you may have, ensure you keep to the disciplined process, rebalance the portfolio within agreed parameters and deal with the inevitable changes to your circumstances. It also allows us to deal with any issues that still need to be addressed.