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Example clients

We work with a wide range of clients. We deliberately don't impose a minimum portfolio level as our vision is to change the face of quality financial planning in the UK by being inclusive rather than exclusive.

We have provided below some example client types as well as an idea of the sort of advice we generally provide to such clients. You may, of course, fit into more than one category.

The multi-millionaire >>
On the cusp of retirement >>
Enjoying retirement >>
The high earner >>
Recently wealthy >>
Settled with partner but no kids yet >>
Young, free and single >>
Civil Partnership >>
The expat (foreigner living in UK or Brit living overseas) >>

The multi-millionaire

We deal with many clients with seven and eight figure wealth. Such people are increasingly seeking the services of top-end, fee based financial planners rather than using “Wealth Managers”, banks and stockbroking firms who will generally only advise on investments. Our experience is that for such clients “wealth preservation” is key. That doesn’t just mean leaving assets in cash, because inflation can easily eat away at the real value of assets.

Whether you decide to use our Comprehensive Financial Planning or Investment Service, our charges tier down considerably once assets under advice exceed £1 million and further still for assets over £3 million. The investment platforms that we use also have similar tiering on their charges and the funds that we use in our portfolios have extremely competitive charges at all portfolio levels. It goes without saying that on a £1 million + portfolio, even a 0.1% p.a. difference in charges is a big number.

As well as keeping the cost of investment to a minimum, we will use our proprietary “Cashflow Analysis” system to show you what direction your finances would take given various assumptions and make sure that you are still on track. Whilst we don’t insist on it, we would strongly encourage you to introduce us to your solicitor and accountant and your children or other beneficiaries if estate planning is a key consideration.

On the cusp of retirement

Quite often we have to take the most difficult and important decisions about money as we approach retirement and/or financial independence.

Questions like:

Can we actually afford to retire now, or at all?
Do we have enough money?
Should we continue working part time or maybe start a small part time business?
How should I draw my pension benefits?
How do my investments fit in with my pensions?
How will inflation impact on my plans?

At Evolve we believe that we should all treat planning for retirement as a process rather than an event, over many years rather than a point in time. Nevertheless, there will often be a point in time when key decisions have to be made regarding the above questions and that is where our Comprehensive Financial Planning and Focused services are designed to help.

We often find that an analysis of your assets, liabilities, income and expenditure is a useful exercise at this stage in life. We can project these forward over the remainder of your expected lives to see how your capital may change over time, effectively we can see whether it is likely that you will have excess capital or whether you will be likely to run out of money. We can also help you to visual the impact of inflation, stock market corrections or early death on the ability for you and your partner to maintain financial independence.

Enjoying retirement

Many of our clients are comfortably retired, are drawing on their pensions and have an investment portfolio, often in the £250,000 to £500,000 bracket that can be used to supplement their income if required.

If this sounds like you, do you know what you are currently paying in fund charges and are you comfortable with the amount of investment risk that you are currently taking? Our experience is that many people pay a lot for their investments and get little in return. Whilst we can’t promise great returns (because we make it clear to all clients that we don’t have a crystal ball that allows us to see into the future) we will help you put together a low cost, well diversified, tax-efficient portfolio and give you a great service at the same time.

If you are a couple, we’ll make sure that both parties are involved in the process so that you both understand the reasoning behind our recommendations. If you are drawing a pension via “Income Drawdown”, as many of our clients are, we will help you to manage this as part of an integrated approach to pension investment planning. We’ll also help you to understand your Inheritance Tax position and make recommendations to mitigate this, if appropriate.

The high earner

A significant number of our clients are affected by the changes in pension legislation. From April 2010, those with total incomes (not just salary and bonus) of over £100,000 need to plan carefully if they want to hold on to their tax-free Personal Allowance. In fact, income between £100,000 and around £114,000 could suffer an effective 61% marginal tax rate if sensible steps are not taken.

Those who will have had total income of £150,000 or over in the 2009/10, 2008/09 or 2007/08 tax years need to take extra care. We will help you to devise a strategy to make the most out of a pretty nasty piece of legislation.

If you fit into this category, probably the biggest benefit of our service is the fact that we are not incentivised to sell you financial products. Our fee structure works really well for those people who are regularly adding to their portfolios as we do not take commissions. Our focus is on providing the best possible advice, whether that advice is to pay into a pension to build an investment portfolio or to pay off your mortgage.

Recently wealthy

Whether you have sold a business, received an inheritance or won the lottery, it is important not to rush into any decisions about money. Invest time in seeing a number of advisers, learn something from each of them and then go with someone with a clearly defined service and charging structure, but most importantly someone you can trust. We have clients in this situation who have spent a number of years researching their options before eventually choosing us as their adviser.

When advising all clients, the starting point is to work out what their objectives are but this is doubly important when working with some one with new-found wealth. Answers like “I want my money to grow” or “I want to protect what I’ve got” are a useful starting point but we need to dig a lot deeper, as it is more important to understand by these things are required. It might be worth asking yourself the question:

What is important about money to me?

Until the money has a purpose, there is little sense in you diving in at the deep end and investing it. This is where the “Cashflow Analysis” aspect of our service comes into its own. We will use this to show you what direction your finances would take given various assumptions and this in turn will help us to demonstrate what investment return you need to achieve to fulfil all of your dreams and ambitions and still not run out of money.

Whether or not you decide to appoint Evolve as your adviser we would strongly urge you to take advice from a fee based financial planner. The last thing you need is someone selling you “products” and encouraging you to invest all of your money in one go, At Evolve we will normally suggest that any investment is made in a number of tranches, so as to minimise the risk of investing on the crest of a wave, only to find that a short while later investment markets have taken a tumble.

Settled with partner but no kids yet

After settling down with the person we love, our thoughts often turn to how we can provide security for them long into the future. This can involve building an investment portfolio overtime, whilst putting in place insurance to provide for them should the worst happen.

Once again lifetime cashflow planning can help us to work out how much you need to save in order to build an investment and pension portfolio that can provide for financial independence, whilst also calculating the optimum level of insurance required to protect those close to us.

Some fee based planning firms have relatively high minimum fees that make this type of planning inaccessible unless you have a substantial investment portfolio, whereas at Evolve our fees for comprehensive planning start from £100 pm, our the equivalent of gym membership for a couple.

Young, free and single

Sadly most of us at Evolve aren’t, but we’re all young enough at heart to remember those halcyon days!

One of our aims as a business has always been to open up high quality financial planning advice to a wider audience than the “traditional” investment business that targets so called “high net worth individuals”.

Fees for our Comprehensive Financial Planning Service start at £100 p/m so the viability of this really depends on your income and asset levels. Through this service we’ll be very “hands on” and help you make the most of benefits on offer from your employer, get you set up with a low cost pension and ISA and generally make sure that you are putting your excess income to best use. If £100 p/m seems a bit out of reach, take a look at our Investment Service.

The Evolve Investment Service is a fresh concept in personal investment. It has been made possible by the entrance into the UK market of two of the biggest and lowest cost names in global fund management and Evolve’s willingness to embrace great new ideas. It is designed for people with £50,000 or more of invested assets (such as ISAs, unit trusts and pensions) who want to set up a personalised investment portfolio, but don’t want to pay through the nose for it. Importantly, it is also accessible to regular savers who currently have less than £50,000 in their portfolio.

If you think that a typical fund such as a unit trust will charge you 1.5% p.a. or more in annual management fees, probably a hefty up front fee as well and, on average perform worse than the index that it is investing in (primarily because of the high fees), you have to ask yourself whether this represents good value for money.

The Evolve Investment Service is designed to give you a well diversified portfolio AND personalised investment advice plus a whole host of other benefits, for less than what you might expect to pay for a “typical” fund. We have access to institutionally priced funds from two of the biggest names in the US fund management industry, Vanguard and Dimensional Fund Advisors. Historically, such low cost funds have only been available to large “institutional” investors such as pension funds and charities.
Whichever service you go for, you will get advice from a team of the best qualified financial planners in the UK who will make sure that you are on track to be one of those “high net worth individuals” of the future.

Civil Partnership

We advise a number of Civil Partnerships on their finances and whilst most areas of advice can be approached in the same way as we would for any married couple, our experience is that special care needs to be taken in certain circumstances. For example, when drawing a company pension some schemes would pay a dependent’s pension to a Civil Partner, but others won’t. Also, as most Civil Partners don’t have children, the discussions around Estate Planning tends to follow a different direction.

We would encourage Civil Partners to treat their finances as a couple rather than as two individuals as this is the most efficient way of doing things, but we appreciate that this isn’t always the way people like to view their finances.

The expat (Overseas citizen living in UK or UK Citizen living overseas)

Paying for good advice seems to be much more widely accepted overseas than it is in the UK. For too long, savers in the UK have been led to believe that financial advice was free because it was all paid for by commission from the insurance or investment company, but this is clearly not the case.

We have clients from many different nationalities who are now resident in the UK. They are generally on high incomes and realise that paying a fee as low £100 p/m to someone who can guide them through the maze that is the UK financial system is money well spent.

We also deal with a number of Brits living overseas. Their experience of advisers who focus (or should we say prey) on the expat community is not generally a positive one. Through our Investment Service we are able to put together a low cost, well diversified portfolio that is free from the hefty commissions and dubious sales practices that are often associated with the expat marketplace.