Investment consulting

We first work with you to determine your comfort levels for investment risk (reward vs loss) and your capacity for financial loss (how losses would affect your lifestyle and goals).

We then calculate how hard your money needs to work in order to achieve your objectives, identified during our discovery meeting.

The outcome of the first two steps leads to the design of your long-term funding allocation to different asset types. We call this the Strategic Asset Allocation. This ensures several baskets are made available for all your eggs, meeting your need for a strong balance between risk and reward. The asset allocation provides you with risk separation.

“The level of interest received determines whether an investor eats well, or sleeps well.” John Morley, 19th Century British Liberal Statesman.

Investment and economic conditions change over time, favouring some areas of investment assets over others. To capture this potential extra growth or avoid potential downsides requires an adjustment to the weighting between different assets, using a shorter-term measure we call Tactical Asset Allocation.
Tactical Allocation is recommended to clients when our Investment Governance Committee has a strong enough conviction to deviate temporarily from the longer term Strategic Asset Allocation model to capture potentially higher growth over a shorter time period. This increases exposure to an area such as, for instance, equities (stocks and shares) with a lowering in, for instance, Commercial property. Over time, we will revert to the longer-term strategy.

We then fill these asset types by blending investment funds in these sectors from the whole marketplace. These may track an index passively by computer – such as the FTSE All Share Index, or be actively managed for potentially greater returns (or safety) by a professional investment team.

The individual funds are monitored on a weekly basis to ensure they are performing as expected. We report to you each quarter with a review of your portfolio against set benchmarks, providing a market commentary and a valuation of your money so you can track progress. Before the Quarterly Reviews, we will make recommended changes (when appropriate) to funds or a switch to Tactical Allocation. If you are in agreement, we make the changes on your behalf.

We meet at your yearly Strategic Review to discuss and map progress towards achieving your investment objectives. We identify how these may have changed for you, revisiting your comfort levels for risk and capacity for loss. Also at this review meeting, we look at other Financial Planning issues using our 12 Point Checklist.