We take nothing from the products we recommend
Fee-only investment advice, charged as a flat annual amount rather than as a share of what you hold.
The practice, not the portfolios
Three things we are asked for
The third is the one people are most nervous about asking.
01Portfolio advice
An annual engagement: a written policy you agree, a rebalancing discipline, and four meetings a year. Most of the value is in the discipline rather than in any individual decision, which is an unglamorous thing to sell and the truthful one.
02Estate and succession
Who inherits what, how, and what it costs to do it badly. This work is mostly conversation rather than analysis, and it is often the first time a family has said any of it out loud. We bring in a lawyer rather than pretending to be one.
03A second opinion
Somebody else manages your money and you are not sure. We will read the statements and tell you what you are actually paying — including the costs inside products, which is usually the number that surprises. Charged as a one-off, and about half the time we conclude your existing adviser is fine.
A flat fee, agreed before we look at anything
How an adviser is paid decides what they will tell you, and almost every conversation in this industry is shaped by a commission the client never sees. We take none: no trail, no distributor fee, no rebate from any product on any recommendation, and the flat annual amount is agreed before we look at a portfolio. That has two consequences worth stating plainly. The first is that our advice is frequently to do nothing, which is difficult to charge for and is correct far more often than the industry admits. The second is that we are cheaper than a percentage-of-assets arrangement for larger portfolios and more expensive for small ones — so for a portfolio below about a crore we will usually say you do not need us yet, and mean it. The fee does not rise because your portfolio did; a year in which markets doubled took us no more work than a year in which they did not.
What clients came for, and what they got
I asked them to review what my bank had put me into. They showed me the costs inside the products, which nobody had ever itemised, and it was almost four times what I thought I was paying. They did not sell me anything on that call.
In fourteen years the most valuable thing they have done is talk me out of decisions, three of which I still feel strongly about and all three of which they were right on. The fee has never once moved because a market did.
They brought a lawyer to the second meeting rather than improvising, and told my father plainly that one thing he wanted to do would cost his children a great deal. That conversation had been avoided in our family for a decade.
How an engagement runs
Four stages, and the first two are free.
A conversation
Half an hour on the phone about what you are actually worried about, which is rarely the thing people open with. It ends with an honest answer about whether an adviser would help, and about a third of the time that answer is no.
Reading what exists
Statements, policies and whatever is already in place. We come back with what you are currently paying — including the costs inside products — and what we would change. No charge, and no obligation after it.
A written policy
What you own, why, in what proportions, and the rule for when that changes. Agreed by you and kept to a single page, because a policy nobody can remember in a falling market is a policy that will not survive one.
Four meetings a year
Rebalancing, tax and whatever has changed in your life. Most meetings end with no action, and that is the service working rather than failing to.
Request a meeting
The first conversation is free and about a third of them end with us saying you do not need an adviser yet. If you already have one and are unsure, that is a good reason to call rather than an awkward one.
Ask what you are actually paying
Of anybody, including us. The costs inside a product are rarely on a statement, and the answer is the single most useful number in this industry.
