What is wealth management and is it for you?

If you have money to invest, wealth management is certainly worth considering. By combining specialist knowledge of financial planning with skilled investment management, wealth management provides a complete service: it will help you protect your assets and achieve your long-term financial goals.

You could be forgiven for wanting to lock your savings away safely under the bed, but then your wealth would not be growing and would instead be depreciating.  

If you’re already investing, you’ll know that managing your money is a difficult juggling act that requires you to stay on top of everything from the likely path of interest rate rises to the subtle – and not so subtle – reasons behind stock market volatility. Often matters such as tax and estate planning or wealth transfer are intertwined with making the right investment decisions at the right time.  

Given the complexity of today’s financial world, it’s no surprise that more people are seeking wealth management to manage their money and enjoy the greater peace of mind it brings.

What is wealth management?

A problem shared is a problem halved. Even better is a problem shared with not one but a team of financial planning and investment management experts. That’s the principle behind an integrated wealth management service: multiple supporters from a single source.

When you think about it, combining financial planning with investment management makes practical sense. After all, the priorities you require from the first service directly impact how the second is carried out. In other words, once you’ve established and mapped out your financial goals, you need to invest appropriately to achieve them.  

An integrated wealth management service not only gives you clarity and a firmer grip on your finances, but it also frees you to devote more time to focus on other things that matter most to you rather than worrying about tax allowances and changes in legislation.

If you choose wealth management, you’ll have your own dedicated wealth manager. While there are clearly important and useful innovations through technology, especially in terms of speeding up transactions and reducing fees, you can’t beat talking to an actual person – especially when it comes to your money.  

A wealth management team will ensure you take advantage of available tax allowances and changes in legislation. The solution to your financial needs may be straightforward or complex, but bringing in multiple specialists in a single team covers all the bases.  

What's the catch?

As with all investments, their price and the income from them can go down as well as up. Understanding the amount of risk you’re comfortable taking – and how it may change over the years – will be at the heart of your adviser’s relationship with you.  

For example, they’ll assess how much you want to put into investments that deliver potentially higher returns but carry a correspondingly greater risk. In contrast, investments with less risk usually deliver relatively lower returns. The mix in a portfolio should reflect your risk appetite based on achieving your financial goals.

What are you waiting for?  

There is never a bad time to grow your wealth. You may have to support a young family and consider your children’s education, or you may be looking forward to an income that supports your retirement. Making sure you pass on as much of your wealth as possible is also likely to be important. Or you may have inherited money that you need to manage.

Remember that it’s never too late – or too early – to plan your financial future. What’s important is creating a financial plan that will support you both now and in the future.

It’s personal relationships and trust that ultimately determine the success of a good wealth management service and, at Brooks Macdonald, we’re as interested in you as we are in your finances. We want to know about your life goals, your home and your family because, after all, that’s what it’s all for.

How often you keep in touch with your adviser is up to you, but if you choose to invest with us, then you can expect quarterly and annual reviews. We’re always at the end of a phone and happy to offer advice or discuss your finances and goals.