What is wealth management, and do you need it?

Early on in life, it’s rare to have sufficient investments or investible assets to consider wealth management. However, as we progress, and we accumulate these assets, we start to think more about how hard they’re working and what they can provide for us.

Still, many people hesitate before speaking to a wealth manager because they’re not sure what options are available and whether they qualify.

Hesitations can be costly when it comes to investment decisions and tax planning. So, to help you decide if wealth management is right for you, we’ve answered some of the common questions. If you need any more information, we’d be happy to discuss your situation one-on-one.

What is a wealth manager?

A wealth manager is someone whose aim is to help clients to build, grow, and preserve their wealth. They work to achieve clients’ long-term goals and objectives and help them to develop positive investment habits.

Wealth managers often work with individual clients and their families, but may also work with trusts, companies, charities, and endowment funds.

What does a wealth manager do?

A wealth manager will work with you to understand your current financial position, requirements, and goals, before creating a bespoke portfolio structured to meet these goals whilst remaining tax efficient.

Wealth management includes various services:

1. Investment management. Investment management is the total oversight of your portfolio and its handling, including buying and selling assets, plotting the future course for your investments and devising strategies to achieve your goals.
2. Tax planning. Tax planning is understanding and navigating the complexities of taxation and identifying the best structures to preserve your wealth. Whether you want to drive growth, provide an income, or simply preserve what you have, tax planning plays an important role.
3. Estate planning. Estate planning is a strategy to allow you to pass on your wealth to future generations in the most tax-efficient manner. This may include creating a will or trust and designated beneficiaries.
4. Financial planning. Financial planning is the process of aligning your needs, values, and personal goals with every aspect of your finances. It gives you a complete picture of where you are now and where you can get to in the future.

What are the benefits of wealth management?

The advantages of employing a wealth manager include:

• A portfolio of globally diverse investments
  We will construct your portfolio from a variety of global investments. This helps to ensure you achieve broad diversification, with the aim of delivering the best performance for your preferred investment strategy.
  
  
• Access to a broad spectrum of alternative classes
  If suitable for you, we can further diversify your portfolio with access to a wide range of higher risk investments that are typically not available to individual investors, including absolute return funds, hedge funds, infrastructure funds, private equity, and commercial property funds.
  
  
• Proactive portfolio management
  One of the biggest advantages of wealth management is that your manager can react to sudden changes in market conditions and make important investment decisions quickly. In volatile times, this quick response can make a meaningful difference to your long-term returns.

From selecting your investments to proactively preparing and reacting quickly to changing market dynamics, we will always be monitoring your portfolio to ensure that it is in line with your risk appetite and capacity for loss. In simple terms, we do all the heavy lifting for you.

What is discretionary fund management (DFM)?

Discretionary fund management is a level of service offered by wealth managers. With discretionary fund management, you give your wealth manager permission to make decisions on your behalf about how, when, and where to invest your money.

Once we have agreed on an appropriate investment strategy for you, we will take responsibility for all the day-to-day decision-making, enabling us to respond quickly to market changes or capitalise on investment opportunities that may present themselves. With less time spent on your financial decisions, you’ll have more time to spend on whatever’s important to you.

How much does wealth management cost?

We charge an ongoing fee for our services. The cost will depend on the size of your portfolio and any transaction charges incurred.

Paying for wealth management services provides you with access to professional advice and experience. It enables you to make informed financial decisions and helps you to work towards your goals and aspirations.

How much money do you need to work with a wealth manager?

We sometimes find that potential clients delay enquiring about our services as they feel that they are not wealthy enough to qualify, which is often not the case.

We offer clients different services depending on their requirements and assets. So, it’s worth having a conversation about which of our services would be most suitable for you. There’s no charge for these discussions. If you’d like to find out how we can help you, please get in touch.

To contact or read more about Sebastian Culpan-Scott in Cheltenham, visit his bio here.