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How we charge

We understand how important cost is when you are choosing a financial planner to work with. That is why we have chosen to be in the minority of firms that disclose their fees online. The way we charge is unique in Hong Kong. As you may have noticed, very few firms work on a fee basis; in fact, most of them still work on a commission basis. We would never want to leave you guessing, which is why we have made the decision to tell you exactly what we charge at every stage.

We hope to work with you throughout your lifetime and aim to deliver you significant value, so we need to be transparent and honest from the outset.

This way, you’ll maximise the value of having a dedicated wealth manager working with you, wherever you are.

The information below will give you as much detail as you need before your Initial Meeting. However, for accurate figures, we advise speaking to us directly. We will never undertake any fee-generating work without first agreeing it with you.

Stage 1. Initial Meeting

After getting in touch, we will hold your Initial Meeting with you to understand a little bit more about your circumstances and the issues that have brought you to us. We want to be satisfied that we can assist you and, importantly, deliver you significant value, before we move on to explore more thoroughly the option of working together.

Stage 2. Discovery Meeting

Following on from your Initial Meeting, your Discovery Meeting involves a more comprehensive exploration of your unique set of circumstances, objectives and goals. As we’re willing to invest our time in getting to know you, your situation and what you want to achieve with your finances, we always undertake this meeting at our expense.

Towards the end of this meeting, we aim to have closely defined the scope of the advice you require, broadly laid out the process and timescales involved, and outlined the likely costs. A key objective of this meeting is to help you assess whether our fees will deliver significant value.

Stage 3. Financial Strategy

Once we’ve understood your goals and you have confirmed that you wish to formally engage our services, we will ask you to complete our client agreement and start the process of constructing your bespoke Financial Strategy to help you achieve your goals.

The process here includes:

  • Further consultations following the Discovery Meeting to develop an overall understanding of your objectives and requirements. This often involves helping you to define, quantify and prioritise your goals.
  • The use of interactive cashflow forecasting software to give you a visual representation of what your financial future may look like, including comparisons with different “what if?” scenarios. Read about the benefits here.
  • Researching any existing provisions you have and a critical analysis of the relevant options available.
  • Recommendations for tax-efficient planning concerning your savings and investments.
  • Advice on creating an investment portfolio that best suits your financial goals and objectives.
  • A bespoke strategy with actionable recommendations to help take you closer to meeting your goals and objectives.
  • Further consultations to walk you through our recommendations in your Financial Strategy report, highlighting the key advantages and the relevant risks and a follow-up Q&A meeting.

We have two planning options for this stage:

Simple Planning

Fixed fee: ÂŁ2,250

This service may be suitable if:

  • Your liquid assets are valued at up to around ÂŁ250,000 or your individual income(s) is up to approximately ÂŁ100,000 per annum
  • You require limited assistance defining, quantifying and prioritising your goals
  • You might be 15 to 20+ years from retirement
  • You may have an existing financial plan that requires only minor updates
  • You predominantly require advice on investing cash rather than existing investment portfolios
  • In addition, you require analysis and advice on just one existing investment or pension account
  • You only need to review one specific area of advice
  • Your UK tax situation is straightforward or you’re a resident in a simple tax jurisdiction
  • Any UK tax-related investment planning requirements are simple with no complex pension

Full Planning

Fixed fee: from ÂŁ3,750

This service may be suitable if:

  • Your liquid assets are in excess of ÂŁ250,000 or your individual income(s) over ÂŁ100,000 per annum
  • You’d like help to define, quantify and prioritise your financial goals
  • You’d like to explore different outcomes based on various scenarios
  • You might be on the approach (less than 10 years) to retirement or recently retired
  • You don’t have a financial plan, or your existing plan needs significant work
  • You have a number of existing investments and/or pensions that need analysing and incorporating into our investment advice
  • You require advice on multiple issues
  • You’d benefit from ongoing UK tax planning, funding ISAs and pensions, which may include complex calculations
  • Your UK tax situation might be more involved with lost or tapered allowances or Inheritance Tax and Capital Gains Tax considerations.

To better understand what drives our fees, read our article, which highlights the four important factors that could affect the fees we charge you.

Stage 4. Implementation

If you wish to proceed with implementing our recommendations made in your Financial Strategy Report, you may have the option to undertake this yourself, so long as we are notified of this intention when you engage us. Alternatively, like most clients we work with, you may prefer that we take professional responsibility for ensuring the accurate implementation of our recommendations. This fee covers:

  • Completing all paperwork and applications
  • Liaising with various product providers and investment platforms
  • Placing investment instructions for any new investments we recommend.

Our fee

For this service, we typically charge ÂŁ1,000 to ÂŁ3,000. We would expect the implementation fee for our Simple Planning service to be at the lower end of this range and for more complex Planning to be towards the upper end. However, the exact implementation fee will be confirmed in the Financial Strategy Report.

Stage 5. Ongoing advisory service

To manage your long-term financial future, we strongly recommend reviewing your strategy at least annually, although it is often more frequent. This review will involve detailed discussions about any recent or upcoming changes that could affect your plans.

Included as standard in the Ongoing Advisory Service are:

  • An Annual Progress Meeting, which we schedule in advance
  • Regular contact with your financial adviser
  • Monitoring progress towards your goals and a review of your cashflow forecasting
  • Reviewing your recommended strategy
  • Ongoing investment advice
  • Yearly tax mitigation
  • Pension planning
  • Income management
  • Estate planning
  • Working with any of your existing professional advisers, e.g., accountants
  • Introducing you to other professionals, where required.

Our fee

The minimum fee levels that will apply as outlined below are based upon the agreed service proposition as indicated under the Financial Strategy:

  • Simple Planning: ÂŁ2,250 minimum annual fee (or tiered rates if higher)
  • Full Planning: ÂŁ3,750 minimum annual fee (or tiered rates if higher)
Assets under management Our charge
Less than ÂŁ1 million 0.95%
ÂŁ1 million to ÂŁ2 million 0.85%
ÂŁ2 million to ÂŁ5 million 0.75%
More than ÂŁ5 million 0.65%

In addition to our Ongoing Advisory Charge, there are other investment related charges that you need to be aware of before investment. You can find further general information on these fees by clicking here.

Example: If the value of your assets under management (the assets that you specifically appoint us to advise on) is ÂŁ500,000, we would charge you ÂŁ4,750 per annum.

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