Financial planning & wealth management

Our service brings your whole financial life into one plan. It includes:

• a detailed review of your assets, income and goals
• a lifetime cashflow forecast
• advice on pensions, investments, tax, protection and estate planning
• discretionary investment management
• regular reviews.

You’ll have a dedicated Chartered financial planner supported by a team, and we’ll coordinate with your accountant and solicitor.

Cashflow modelling projects your finances year by year, usually to age 100, using your income, spending, assets and plans. It turns questions such as “Can I retire at 58?”, “Can we give £500,000 to the children?” or “What if markets fall 30%?” into clear answers. We update the forecast at every review, so your plan responds to real events rather than assumptions made years ago. For many clients, this is the most valuable part of the service because it gives them the confidence to act.

Look for independence, qualifications and transparency:

• Check whether the firm is independent or restricted, and whether your adviser is a Chartered financial planner.
• Ask for the total annual cost in pounds, including platform and fund charges.
• Ask who holds your assets, how often you’ll meet and who you’ll deal with day to day.
• Check the firm regularly works with clients like you. Someone selling a business needs different expertise from someone drawing a pension.

Take your time. Keep the money safe in the short term, spread across more than one bank, and avoid big decisions until you have a plan. We’ll help you work out what the money needs to do, such as clearing debt, supporting family, retiring earlier or investing for the long term. We’ll also look at tax, including your pension and ISA allowances. If you don’t need the money, redirecting some of it with a deed of variation, within two years of the death, can reduce inheritance tax on your own estate.

For clients with substantial assets, the value usually comes from decisions that are hard to get right alone: how to structure withdrawals, when to gift, which allowances to use, how to avoid costly mistakes and how to stay invested when markets are volatile. Good advice aims to add more value than it costs, but that depends on your circumstances. That’s why, before you commit, we set out exactly what we’ll do for you and what it will cost in pounds.

Usually by bringing them onto one platform. They can then be managed to a single strategy, with one view of your wealth, less paperwork and often lower charges:

• Pensions typically move into a SIPP.
• ISAs transfer as ISAs, so they keep their tax-free status.
• Other investments can often move “in specie”, without being sold, so no capital gains tax is triggered.

Before any transfer, we check each account for features that could be lost, such as guaranteed annuity rates, protected tax-free cash or exit charges. Defined benefit pensions and some older policies are often better left where they are.

Independent financial planning means building a plan around your goals, then recommending solutions from across the whole market. It doesn’t rely on a limited panel of providers or the firm’s own products. Under FCA rules, a firm can only describe its advice as independent if its recommendations are based on a comprehensive and fair analysis of the market, and are unbiased and unrestricted. Restricted advisers may recommend only certain products or providers, and must tell you so. When choosing an adviser, ask whether they’re independent or restricted, whether they have their own in-house funds, and exactly how they’re paid.

Our service is designed as an ongoing relationship, because for clients with substantial wealth most of the value comes from regular reviews and coordinated decisions over many years. We do provide one-off advice for specific needs, such as investing a lump sum or reviewing a pension, for a fixed fee agreed in advance.

For clients with substantial assets, the value usually comes from decisions that are hard to get right alone: how to structure withdrawals, when to gift, which allowances to use, how to avoid costly mistakes and how to stay invested when markets are volatile. Good advice aims to add more value than it costs, but that depends on your circumstances. That’s why, before you commit, we set out exactly what we’ll do for you and what it will cost in pounds.