Whatever stage of life you are at, and whatever your level of investment capital, we can help you make the most of your money through personalised planning advice that is tailored to your needs.
As independent financial advisers, our first task is to speak with you and determine your present position and what your objectives are for different stages of your life. This takes into account medium and long-term plans, including planning for retirement, later life care, providing for adult children or any other objective.
We are truly independent, meaning we are not linked to any particular bank or financial institution. The advice we give is therefore impartial, allowing us to select from the most appropriate financial products and services to help you balance risk and get the best returns from your investments.
We provide a common sense approach to investment advice, helping you achieve your goals through the whole range of investments, from ISAs and collective investments, through to pension planning, and other more specialist solutions such as Enterprise Investment Schemes (EIS) and Venture Capital Trusts (VCTs).
1. Our first meeting is always free of charge as it is really the stage where you talk, and we listen. We need to understand you – your objectives, fears, ambitions, needs and aspirations. Once we establish the areas where you need advice, we can then agree whether we are the right firm for you, and you are the right client for us. This is all about working together.
2. Then we need to get into more detail. We analyse your existing savings, investments and pensions to ascertain any strengths or weaknesses, and how these tie in with your objectives. We assess your attitude to risk, and your capacity for loss. Your attitude to risk is how much risk you want to take, and your capacity for loss is how much risk you can afford to take.
3. Next, we make recommendations for appropriate solutions, taking into account your timeframe for each of your objectives.
4. Our recommendations will reflect your attitude risk, the possible impact of inflation and economic fluctuations in your portfolio, and your capital and income needs will be incorporated into our advice.
5. With long-term customers we carry out regular reviews of the performance of individual funds, rebalancing the portfolio so that the combination of assets does not stray too far from the original asset mix and continues to serve your objectives. Poor performing funds are weeded out and new opportunities adopted in order to adapt to any changes in circumstances. This reduces the overall level of volatility and risk to the portfolio over time.
All investments involve some degree of risk, meaning that the total value of your portfolio can fluctuate over time. The value of some funds and products can go down as well as up, which is why we always recommend a long-term approach be taken to investment planning. With the right balance of investments, the risk of loss can be mitigated and reduced. We believe that when managing risk, diversification is your best friend.
Most investors have an ‘investment style’ and are comfortable with higher or lower levels of risk. We aim to create an investment plan that works for you and with which you are comfortable. Your attitude to risk and capacity for loss is taken into account and a suitable mix of assets recommended so as to fall within these, since different assets react to economic events in diverse ways.
The old saying ‘don’t put all your eggs in one basket’ makes a lot of sense when managing and reducing risk.
However, even in a conservative portfolio aiming for stability, including small doses of higher risk investments, such as smaller company shares or emerging markets, can help to reduce overall risk, since these funds react differently to other investments. In some cases, fixed interest investments can increase risk, particularly when interest rates rise or inflation looms.
Funds can either be actively managed by a Fund Manager, or are passive funds linked to a particular index. Where there is no consistent record of outperformance by fund managers, we will recommend passive index tracking funds to help reduce your investment cost and minimise your risk.
Find out more about your investment options by speaking to one of our Chartered Financial Planners. Call 01932 867 641, or email info@andersbayleyscott.co.uk.