What is Wealth Management

While financial planning and wealth management are related, they differ in scope, focus, and complexity. Wealth management is a more comprehensive, holistic service focused on growing and preserving significant wealth. The scope goes beyond planning to include investment management, estate and inheritance planning, generational wealth transfer, portfolio management, risk management and philanthropy planning.

Just like our financial planning, wealth management is undertaken by our independent financial advisers (IFAs), ensuring you receive unbiased, tailored advice across the whole market. Unlike restricted advisers who only recommend products from certain providers, our independent advisers can select from the whole market, ensuring their recommendations are not limited or influenced by a single company and that the advice you receive is unbiased.

Our professional advisers create personalised strategies by tailoring solutions to your circumstances, needs, and objectives. From there, they will formulate a plan to manage your investments in the best way to achieve your long-term aims. At Lowndes Halsden, we offer both advisory and discretionary services. If you opt for the advisory model, we’ll provide investment recommendations for your approval and agree on a basis of regular review. Discretionary management is a more proactive service. In this case, we agree to your instructions and will manage the portfolio accordingly. 

Once your chosen services have been agreed upon, our advisers will be able to help coordinate all your assets so they work in harmony and steer you towards your financial planning goals.  It’s easy to find specialists in specific disciplines like retirement planning, tax planning, business strategies, estate planning, etc., but it’s hard to find a single company that brings all these areas together. You’ll find it with us.

Do I need Financial planning or Wealth management

With financial planning, all of our advisers have a regulatory obligation to analyse your circumstances and objectives and then provide appropriate recommendations from the options available to them. Our financial advisers (or IFAs) will primarily recommend financial products suitable for the specific issues at hand, with a view to reviewing them in the future.

This is in contrast to wealth management, which has a primary focus on managing your money or investments, as defined by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). This is a more comprehensive service and is confirmed in a contractual agreement. Our wealth management approach forms a long-term strategy that takes into account all aspects of your financial situation. Our advisers provide both comprehensive advice and transactional services. Lowndes Halsden offers discretionary management services, which means we have your authority to make investment decisions without consulting you on every transaction. Alternatively, your advice may be on an advisory basis, where your adviser will require your express authority before buying or selling any investments.

At Lowndes Halsden, all our advisers are qualified to provide financial planning and wealth management services, so there is no need to worry. 

How much do you need to invest with a financial adviser

Many people assume that wealth management only serves the very rich–or high net worth individuals. In truth, wealth management can be the best option for many others who see themselves as comfortable or affluent, but not ‘wealthy’. While some advisers request an investable sum of at least £100,000 and up to £1 million, others might consider a lower amount. Since we are an employee-owned company, we can be more flexible and set a lot lower minimums than larger companies in our industry. As a company, we believe in providing financial education and giving access to financial planning and wealth management for less-affluent and younger clients in the early stages of their investment journey.

Do we think wealth management advice is best performed as a single transaction

The simple answer is no. All our advisers have client relationships that endure for many years. That said, an adviser tends to be more ‘hands-on’ and will normally review their clients’ affairs on a more structured and periodic basis. All our advisers meet the FCA qualification standards, and all have a Statement of Professional Standing (SPS), which provides evidence that they meet the relevant professional standards. What can be confusing is that some advisory companies advertise that they provide wealth management services, but actually, they outsource the work to a third party.

If you have chosen to use our Discretionary Investment Management (DIM), our in-house service will provide you with the peace of mind that comes with delegating the day-to-day management of your investments to a professional. Your discretionary investment manager will maintain a degree of autonomy in managing your investments, subject to ongoing monitoring as part of our investment process. Any trades that the discretionary investment manager conducts on your behalf could be governed by a mandate specific to you. For example, if your tax situation is particularly complex, then the discretionary investment manager may manage your investments so as to minimise that tax liability. Similarly, if you have any unusual objectives or constraints, your investments can be managed under a specific mandate that fully takes them into account.

Using our in-house DIM means that your mandate can be more closely monitored. For any clients using a ‘two portfolio strategy’, incorporating the decumulated portfolio to reduce sequencing risk, our Discretionary Investment Management service can directly liaise with your adviser to ensure your agreed investment objectives are met. The main aim of using a DIM is to keep your investment in a well-diversified portfolio that meets the investment strategy for growth, income, or a mixture of both. If you have ethical, responsible, or ‘ESG’ objectives, your adviser can discuss a bespoke portfolio that meets your needs. Each portfolio will have an asset allocation that will match your attitude to investment risk.

The main difference with our in-house DIM service is the ‘personal touch’ we provide to you, since you will have direct access to the operators of the DIM, who will be able to answer any questions you may have. Our DIM service has no conflicts of interest with fund managers or in-house fund-picking restrictions, as our DIM operators have the freedom to make the right investment decisions. Because we are not a large or multi-national service with billions of funds under management, we have the ability to react swiftly to change to better investment opportunities, which enables us to make tactical changes to the investment position more quickly. Our DIM offering is right for clients who want our personalised service.

All of the above can be discussed during an appointment with your adviser, who will explain which service is best for you.

For more information about any of the above, please email us using the Contact Us page.