Our Approach

Discovery - We Listen

We start by listening: to your hopes and dreams; to worries that keep you awake at night and we help you to clearly define your most important goals.

Data Gathering

We work with you to gather details about your current financial situation, much of this without significant disruption to you; your current resources, including pensions, investments, properties, cash and business assets; and your current liabilities; insurance policies and trust, estate and attorney documents.

Discovery

Understanding your 'story', your values and your beliefs is integral to how we work. We want to learn about you, your family, and, if relevant, your business.

Goal Setting

If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there. We help you identify your objectives, as well as understand any fears that may get in their way.

Enlightenment - We Create a Plan

Once we have spent time learning about you, we will use advanced planning tools to test potential strategies under a variety of outcomes.

We believe uncertainty about life expectancy, future expenditure needs and investment returns make this 'stress-testing' essential to the planning process.

Working together, we will build a comprehensive plan to maximise the chances of achieving your most important goals.

This plan will identify how likely you are to achieve all your goals, and if this is not possible to help you prioritise. We will identify actions that you should address to aid your journey toward financial independence.

Navigation - We Prioritise and Make Changes Where Needed

If changes are needed, we will clearly identify priorities, then gradually, to avoid overwhelming details, highlight the options and make specific recommendations. There is no limit to the scope of our advice, but we would normally expect to cover:

• Long-term budget and cash flow planning
• Investment risk management and asset selection
• Retirement and pension planning
• Tax planning guidance
• Protection analysis and insurance planning
• Trust, estate and inheritance tax planning

The Financial Conduct Authority does not regulate Trust, estate and inheritance tax planning.

Implementation - We Take Action

We take responsibility to ensure your plans are properly implemented.

We work closely with leading investment, product providers and insurance firms as well as your own legal and tax advisers to make sure things are done right.

We employ a rigorous, process driven approach to investment which is designed to protect capital, and grow your wealth. Portfolios are diversified across many different types and styles of investment. Each portfolio is scrutinised to ensure it operates within pre-agreed tolerances to investment fluctuations, matched to client goals and risk tolerance.

We offer both low-cost ‘passive’ investment solutions and ‘active’ solutions which aim to deliver consistent, above-average returns. Both strategies control risk through broad diversification.

Control - We Regularly Review and Adjust your Plan

We continually review the roadmap with you, along with your various plans, and underlying investments. Changes are recommended to maximise the opportunity to achieve your goals.

Your goals, personal situation, legislation and investment markets will change over time; actual experience will almost certainly be different than originally forecast; and planning assumptions will need adjusting. Regular reviews provide a way to make adjustments to your plans when required.

It can be difficult to remain on track, and your financial goals may take decades to complete. We help you to retain focus, and avoid being lured off course even through challenging times.