Your tailored investment strategy

What is the best investment strategy for you?

Whether you are buying a pair of shoes or seeking financial advice we all want to feel as though we are receiving a personal service that takes into account our individual needs and preferences.

At The Private Office we have decades of experience in managing people’s wealth and a personalised approach to investment is at the heart of everything we do. 

In this article we will take you through a typical client journey for those all-important investments and savings.

The journey starts with you 

As you would expect, planning starts with you! Before we move into investment considerations we need to understand what is important to you.

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As you can see we place great importance not only on your personal objectives, what you want to achieve by investing, but also your appetite to investment risk and whether your investment and life goals can be achieved without taking risk. 

The importance of each of these considerations when building your tailored portfolio cannot be overstated.

• Read How your risk profile affects investment management for some insights into how we assess investment risk for you personally and also in the solutions we offer to our clients.

We are fully independent

As a firm of Chartered independent financial advisers we are not limited in the products or solutions we can consider when we begin to construct your tailored portfolio – we offer a comprehensive range of services. 

This includes unique access to cash management research through our sister company, Savings Champion, which allows us to provide unbiased, independent cash advice to our clients. We recognise that not all planning solutions require you to take investment risk and that cash forms a key part of every financial plan.

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Our model portfolio service 

Although each portfolio is tailored to your personal needs it does not necessarily mean that all of the components of your portfolio needs to be unique to you. 

Our Investment Committee has created a diverse range of portfolios each designed to meet defined investment objectives such as income or growth, whilst aiming not to exceed a stated level of risk exposure. 

Benefits of the model portfolios

We regularly review our entire range of portfolios to ensure that you continue to benefit from our best investment ideas, typically, but not always, making changes to the underlying investment funds twice a year. 

Your holdings within the models are rebalanced independently of any scheduled review meeting(s) and therefore can react to economic shifts when required.

We do not charge any additional advice fees when your portfolios in the model portfolio service are updated as a result of the recommendations made by our investment committee. 

Additionally, through economies of scale we are sometimes able to negotiate improved terms for you with fund managers.

Blending portfolios to meet your objectives 

We do not take a uniform approach to risk and investing as we recognise that the level of risk you are able and willing to take may vary depending on when you plan to access your savings. 

For example, you may be saving into an ISA which you intend to use to pay for school fees for your children, or perhaps a luxury holiday in a few years’ time.

You probably want to have investment returns that are better than cash but also want to minimise the risk to your capital so a ‘higher risk’ approach is not appropriate. 

However, if you are in your 30s or 40s and are saving into a pension which you cannot access for the next 25+ years you may be more comfortable taking a higher level of risk in the shorter term, with a view to increasing your investment returns over time. 

Our range of portfolios allows us to select the most appropriate product, fund or solution for each of your investments.

What if I want a portfolio that is just for me? 

As we have our own internal investment committee we have plenty of in-house expertise which enables us to build a portfolio which is uniquely yours and can take into account any specific investment preferences you may have. 

However, if you have a requirement that we are unable to meet we have extensive relationships with reputable discretionary fund managers who may be able to assist. 

If we feel that you need the services of a discretionary fund manager we can help you choose the right firm for you and, if you so wish, attend your annual meetings with them to monitor their performance and ensure that they remain ‘on track’. 

Due to our fee planning structure we are not incentivised to recommend our own portfolio solutions if we do not believe that these offer the best solution for your planning needs.

This is a really important point as it proves our independence and being totally focussed on YOUR needs.

When investing, It is important to note that investments can fall as well as rise in value and you may not get back what you have invested.

Taking advice from The Private Office 

We are committed to helping all of our clients create, sustain, protect and grow their wealth. Although each financial plan is uniquely crafted to your individual needs the client journey is consistent:

1. Discovery
   A short phone call with some simple questions to check we're a good fit for each other, followed by an initial discovery meeting to understand your wants and needs completely - all held without charge or obligation. We will propose a scope of work outlining the costs of engaging us.
2. Analysis and recommendations
   If you're happy with our proposals, we will then conduct our research and/or review any existing arrangements where applicable. We will arrange a meeting to present our recommendations to you and agree next steps.
3. Welcome and review
   Once your advice is implemented, we will arrange a 'Welcome meeting' to ensure you fully understand how the advice has been implemented and your Adviser will show you the features and functionality of your TPO Wealth portal. Review meetings will be scheduled at least annually to keep track of your progress, but your Adviser is available throughout the year if you have any questions or need any help.

Our service is focussed on making sure that the right combination of tax wrappers such as ISAs, pensions and unwrapped investments  are used to maximise all tax efficient opportunities available to you and that the investments you hold in these tax wrappers are aligned to your risk profile.

To summarise

We are truly independent and Chartered

• We are not tied to any product provider, investment manager or in-house funds – we do not need to build assets under advice as a fee based firm.

We are wealth planners

• Many firms only focus on managing the money – we develop a strategy and advise on the best solutions to implement the strategy that protects and grows YOUR wealth. 

We think long term

• We look at a you and your family’s wealth in its entirety, including cash and property, providing integrated and long-term advice across the generations.

We are proactive

• We offer proactive advice continually assessing whether changes in legislation, market environment or new products and ideas are relevant to our ongoing service for you. 

For help with your investment strategy get in touch to speak to a financial adviser and arrange a no-obligation consultation with one of our team of experts.