Financial planning and investment advice

We explain our services separately for ease of understanding, but in reality all our clients receive Financial Planning and Investment Advice. It’s the core of what we do. It would be reckless to invest without a plan, and most plans require some sort of investment, which is why everyone gets both!

We also offer services tailored to people getting divorced, ranging from helping design and negotiate financial settlements, to being instructed as a ‘shadow expert’ for complex pension sharing cases. Very few financial advisers can truly match our commitment, credentials and experience in this space.

Our approach to financial planning

1. Goal setting

We use a goals-based approach to financial planning, one that begins with the end in mind and focuses on your unique wants and needs.

Often, clients initially approach us thinking their goals are along the lines of:

“I want to grow my wealth by investing in a medium-risk portfolio”

…or some derivative of that. This is because that is what they have either been told before or read online.

Respectfully, we believe goals like that are at best meaningless, and at worst dangerous.

Meaningless because they serve no real purpose, and dangerous because they create a false perception of having set an actual goal.

Instead, we help our clients develop personalised goals using the SMART framework, i.e., we help you set goals that are: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound.

Perhaps something like:

  • I want to partially retire in 4 years’ time, using my pension and investments to replace my drop in earnings.

  • After 2 years of working part-time, I want to fully retire with a combination of guaranteed and flexible income sources funding my spending needs.

  • I want to maximise my enjoyment in retirement by being able to spend more in the early years, while I am fit and able to do so, with a plan to cover future care costs if needed.

  • I also want to mark the occasion with a big family holiday that I think will cost about £X, and contribute £Y to my children’s wedding costs in the next 5-10 years.

Specific, Measurable, Relevant, and Time-bound? Yes! But we don’t yet know if these goals are Achievable, and that is where the plan comes in.

2. The Plan

The plan brings your goals to life.

Once we have established how you want to live, we will start to model your financial future and work out how best to use what you have to fund your desired lifestyle.

This will give us a sense of whether your goals are achievable and what (if any) changes you may need to make.

The planning process is collaborative. We will design the initial plan based on what you have told us, but then we will work together to refine the plan and consider different scenarios, i.e., “what if I choose to do X instead?”.

We will also ‘stress test’ your plan by assessing how it holds up under different economic conditions and across thousands of random simulations.

Doing all this- and making adjustments along the way- will help us design a plan that:

  1. Allows you to live the life that you want, and

  2. We believe is achievable.

This is a thought-provoking and empowering process, and it is something our clients find immensely valuable.

3. The Advice

The advice sets the plan in motion.

Now we know how and when you expect to spend your money, we will start advising you on specific financial matters such as:

  • Which pensions to choose,

  • How best to invest for your goals,

  • How to create and manage your income plan,

  • How to protect yourself and the plan, and

  • How to pass on wealth through gifts and trusts.

Because we have designed a plan that is tailored to your goals, all of these matters (and more) can now be considered through the lens of best serving your plan and, by extension, you.

…And remember, our advice is wholly independent. We are not tied to any product providers or investment managers, which means we are not affected by potential conflicts of interest and have freedom to recommend the best available investment platforms, tax wrappers, funds and policies to fuel your plan.

Simply put:

  1. We design a plan to help our clients achieve their goals, then

  2. We advise them on how best to maintain that plan.

Our approach to investment advice

1 .Setting the framework

Investment Policy Statements (IPSs) are used to codify an investment strategy and provide an objective framework for assessing the decisions that are made.

IPSs are mostly used by trustees of either family or charity investments, however, we believe that every private investor should have an IPS too, to help keep them and their advisers accountable. Because of this, we have designed a template IPS that we complete with all our clients and review annually against the performance of their investments.

Our IPS sets out important aspects of the investment plan, such as the:

  • Risk level.

  • Strategic asset allocation.

  • Contribution or withdrawal strategy.

  • Investment style.

  • Rebalancing strategy.

  • Performance benchmark.

  • Approach to drawdowns.

  • You should only ever invest as part of a plan.

  • This means how much you invest in different things, like equities (stocks), fixed income (bonds), and cash.

    Different asset classes behave differently, with varying expected rates of return and levels of volatility. This means they should be carefully selected (as part of your plan) for different purposes.

  • The less you pay, the more you keep.

    It may not seem like much, but if we can save you 0.5% on your ongoing fees and give you the same expected return, your portfolio will likely be tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of pounds better off over the long-term.

  • Having good ideas is one thing, putting them into practice is totally different.

    When to buy and sell different funds (i.e., rebalance your portfolio) is very important and a lot of investors struggle with this, often 'tinkering' too much which creates unnecessary fees.

    A combination of tolerance-based rebalancing for our portfolios and not slavishly following an index for our multi-asset fund solutions gives us a distinct edge.

  • We believe that no-one can consistently (and indefinitely) outperform the market by selling when prices are high and buying when they are low.

    Investment returns are (mostly) unpredictable and investors lose more money by sitting on the sidelines than they do by investing through the good times and the bad.

  • We prefer formulaic, data-led strategies that do not rely heavily on people making decisions.

    This is because there is simply too much information available in market prices for any human to analyse all the relevant data, form a decision, and act upon said decision before the information changes.

    For context, the equity universe contains around 15,000 companies. No investor/fund manager could possibly know and understand all those businesses, let alone their balance sheets and financial ratios.

  • We have over 100 years' worth of data available to analyse, supported by a wealth of academic literature and economic theory to inform our investment decisions.

  • Market prices are incredibly information rich. They represent the collective wisdom of all market participants (buyers and sellers) and data shows very few can beat the market consistently.

    The majority of investors that attempt to outperform the market fail, which means investors that base their approach on market prices typically do better over the long-run.

2. Guiding investment principles

The following points summarise our core investment principles:

3. Implementing great ideas

Investment management is a discipline that is distinct from financial planning. Done properly, it is a full-time job that requires:

  1. Access to a monumental amount of data,

  2. The skills and tools to analyse said data, and

  3. The time to make decisions based on the results of that analysis.

We provide over-arching investment advice to our clients through the setting of the IPS, and then we recommend third-party funds and discretionary fund managers (DFMs) to manage the investments on a day-to-day basis.

Doing this helps us focus on what we do best, and ensures our clients receive exceptional portfolio management services at very competitive rates.

The following two videos provide an introduction to our two investment partners, Dimensional Fund Advisers, and Ebi Portfolios.

4. Meet our investment partners

Dimensional Fund Advisers

Ebi Portfolios

All investments carry some risk. The value of investments can fall as well as rise. You may not get back what you invest.

How does it work in practice?

1. Discovery

This is the time we spend getting to know you and understanding what you want to achieve.

We will talk openly about your current circumstances and objectives, answer any specific questions you may have, and explain how we may be able to help you.

2. Research

This is the time we spend reviewing your existing financial arrangements, such as your pensions and investments.

At this stage, we will also explain our approach to investing and discuss your personal risk profile.

3. Proposal

We will summarise the outcome of our research and discuss changes you may wish to make to better align your existing arrangements with your goals.

We will also agree a broad plan, that will be guided by our own cashflow modelling tools, and start to project your financial future.

4. Advice

Now, we will be able to start advising you, explaining what we think you should do and why.

Our advice will be sent to you in a report and, once you have had time to read the report, we will organise a call or meeting to talk through the main points and answer any questions you may have.

5. Implement

If you agree with our advice, and if you would like to work with us on an ongoing basis, we will start to make the necessary changes.

The changes may include: opening new accounts or policies, organising transfers, and setting up new contribution or withdrawal plans.

6. Monitor

We will keep watch over your plan, considering changes to the economic and tax landscape, and any personal changes you tell us about.

We will contact you proactively about financial matters we believe are important to you.

7. Review

Annually, we will fully review every aspect of your plan based on changes to your personal circumstances, external changes, and investment values.

The main aim of the review process is to check whether your plan remains on track or if we need to make changes.

8. Adjust

Inevitably, we will need to make some changes, either small tweaks to your investment strategy, using your various tax allowances, or organising income payments.

After making any necessary adjustments, we go back to step 6.

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