Our service looks to provide individuals with guidance to help coincide the suitability of a range of products and investments (stocks and shares, bonds, through collective investment schemes) and insurance products (life, health, disability) through to the participation and monitoring of personal or occupational pension schemes, social security benefits, income tax and capital gains tax management.
The creation, spending and preservation of wealth mean different things to each of us, largely influenced by our personal life experiences and future aspirations.
Integral to a financial plan is the management of investment risk and this is a key element for consideration when designing your Personal Financial Plan.
Your Personal Financial Plan is a financial route map which starts with your Cashflow Forecast.
A well-structured portfolio of assets should have three distinct elements. Each should be regularly reviewed and rebalanced as appropriate to meet your ongoing objectives.
Our Bespoke client services are individually designed and costed to meet the specific requirements of an individual client and our professional contacts.
What is wealth all about?
What does it mean to you?
What does it enable you to do?
What are your aims and aspirations?
How much do you need?
How long will it last?
The creation, spending and preservation of wealth mean different things to each of us, largely influenced by our personal life experiences and future aspirations.
That is why we spend a lot of time to ensure that we really understand you and how you feel about these sometimes very difficult and stretching questions. If we can get a clear picture of your views on these issues we can make sure that we are guiding you in the right direction.
The interpretation of risk varies from individual to individual. Integral to a financial plan is the management of investment risk and this is a key element for consideration when designing your Personal Financial Plan. Three Counties considers three elements to assist us in understanding what risk means to you:
Risk tolerance
Investments are volatile; to help understand your tolerance to investment volatility or risk, we firstly use a global leading scientific risk profiling system incorporating psychometric testing. The results are then used to discuss your understanding and agree your Risk Tolerance.
Risk Need
That rate of return determined by your ‘need’ to take investment risk in order to achieve your objectives required from your investments. Your future anticipated expenditure and the resulting growth or erosion of your capital (as demonstrated in your Cashflow Forecast) will provide an indication of the risk you need to accept.
Risk Capacity
The third dimension is risk capacity; the amount of loss you could sustain in adverse market conditions without affecting your lifestyle and financial aims.
Risk capacity will vary dependent upon your stage of life. Clients who are a number of years from retirement and in employment are likely to have a much greater capacity for risk than individuals who are living off their accumulated assets.
Your investment horizon is also closely considered. This may be related to your stage of life, health or possibly influenced by inter-generational planning issues.
Your Personal Financial Plan is a financial route map which starts with your Cashflow Forecast.
The forecast is produced from your personal balance sheet (your assets and liabilities), your current and future income and expenditure patterns, including expected capital expenditure and potential future investments. It is based on a series of underlying assumptions, all of which we will agree with you.
The beauty of this forecast is its ability to illustrate how your financial future might look, evidenced by detailed income and expenditure statements. It also allows us to model a number of “what if scenarios”. A key output is your Personal Rate of Return (PRR) which indicates the return required from your investments to achieve your aspirations.
After agreeing your Cashflow Forecast we develop your Personal Financial Plan. This will cover three main areas:
Living in the real world means that in reality the best thought out plans and assumptions are likely to go awry which is where our Annual Review Programme comes into play.
One thing is for sure, the Personal Financial Plan we build for you at the outset is going to be tested in all sorts of ways by the realities of life.
Three Counties’ Annual Review Programme has been designed with this in mind to ensure that wherever possible you remain on course. The aim of the programme is to adapt to, and where possible anticipate, changes in your personal circumstances or the external environment.
At the core of the programme is the Annual Review Meeting, taking place at least once a year to ensure that you remain on plan.
There are three main components at work in the construction of our Three Counties Advisory Portfolios.
The Three Counties Investment Committee, members work closely with our Head of investments and formally meet monthly to review the performance of each advisory portfolio. The current committee has over 75 years of combined financial planning and investment management experience. We benefit from access to comprehensive external investment data links from Morningstar and Ibbotson Associates.
Morningstar is a leading provider of independent global investment research providing data on approximately 500,000 investment offerings, including stocks, investment funds, and similar vehicles, along with real-time global market data on more than 5 million equities, indexes, futures, options, commodities, and precious metals, in addition to foreign exchange and Treasury markets within 26 countries.
Ibbotson Associates is a leading authority on asset allocation with expertise in capital market expectations and portfolio implementation. Approaching portfolio construction from the top-down through a research-based investment process, its experienced consultants and portfolio managers serve, wealth managers, mutual fund firms, banks, broker-dealers, and insurance companies worldwide.
They are our vital “partners” in helping us achieve our objective that the most appropriate portfolio is one designed to maximise the probability of meeting a particular client’s financial goals. By involving this outside expertise we can utilise asset allocation models built upon decades of asset allocation research, using capital market assumptions as a foundation. Our own industry standing gives us access to regular face to face meetings with investment managers, to further help us identify what we believe to be the high-quality funds that best reflect our clients’ investment needs.
A well-structured portfolio of assets should have three distinct elements. Each should be regularly reviewed and rebalanced as appropriate to meet your ongoing objectives.
Investments take time to mature and it is important to structure your financial arrangements to ensure that cash is available immediately, without penalty, to cater for emergencies which may arise and to meet short term expenditure.
It is also important to provide for any planned or potential capital expenditure being considered over the next two to five years. Cash required for such planned eventualities should also be held in investments which are not exposed to too much risk and short term volatility or encashment penalties.
Having identified the first two elements, the balance of your capital can then be used to improve the prospects for capital growth over the medium to long term (usually regarded as being five years or more), and to provide a rising income if required. This will be important in maintaining your standard of living by offsetting the effect of inflation on both the capital value of your assets and the spending power of your income.
Our Bespoke client services are individually designed and costed to meet the specific requirements of an individual client and our professional contacts.
These may include, trustee investment reviews, divorce settlements, the review of a new employment package, expert witness work or advanced cashflow planning and the financial planning/management of projects.
Such work will be covered by a separate Letter of Engagement.
