At Investment Quorum we have always taken it seriously that we must be benchmarked by others. It is all right for us to say we think we know what we are doing but we think it is right that others come in and look at our processes look at what we do and look at what we do for clients and give us an opinion on that.

Some of that is done very formally, for instance we were the first UK wealth manager to achieve the highest 3 star or ‘Exceptional’ Investor in Customer status and that is all around what our customers think about us and what our clients say. We also have won several awards within our industry, I have been assessed as one of the UK’s top wealth mangers, Investment Quorum is recognised as one of top 25 wealth management companies in the UK.

We have picked up awards for financial planning, we have picked up awards for investment management, for client care and for client communications.

That is not to show off. What it is to say is that we invite people and organisations in to benchmark our processes to see that we are appropriately delivering what our clients need from us.

Wealth management is the combination of financial planning, investment management, investment consultancy and risk tolerances appropriate to a client.

The scope of financial planning and wealth management is all about protection for their family, any debt and liabilities and, of course, building towards retirement, income in retirement for those approaching and those in retirement and around that there are issues such as investment portfolios, Trusts, tax efficiencies and making sure of the very best chance of optimising for success are built in.

Understanding risk is really important. I think it is important both from the wealth manager’s point of view but particularly from the client point of view. The minute you take money from a deposit account, well arguably there is still risk even on a deposit account, particularly after 2008 when we say that banks weren’t infallible. But the minute you take money from a bank account and move into equity markets you are taking investment risk. It is incredibly important people understand that and that they are comfortable with the level of risk that they take.

Portfolios are comprised of different asset classes, property, cash, equities, bonds and the combination of those dictates the level of risk that is being carried in the portfolio.

We take talking to clients about risk incredibly seriously. We even have a specific document that we discuss with clients and it talks about all the different risks involved and there are many of them. It is not just market risk there is political risk, tax risk, default risk, liquidity risk, there are lots and lots of them.

That is why I think it is important that clients understand what they are getting into when they venture into the investment markets.

Should someone wish to decide investigate becoming a client of Investment Quorum, it is a pretty detailed process. The first meeting, typically is about an hour or an hour and a half. Typically it is held at our expense.

We think it is right that potential clients can look us in the whites of our eyes and see if we are what they are looking for. We discuss during that meeting what we charge, how we charge it, what the client is looking to achieve, when there retirement date is, what investment experience they of investment already so it is quite a detailed process covering a lot of ground.

If at the end of that meeting they feel they wish to move forward with us we will give them a named adviser so they know they have a point of contact from there on in. The administration team would then begin gathering all of the information from all of their existing policies, plans and holdings and then feed it back to their named adviser to analyse it in accordance with their discussions and build a financial or investment plan for discussion at a subsequent meeting.

Moving forward from there we would be looking to meet clients at least once a year, we believe have to deliver value to clients and therefore talk to them constantly with a weekly markets update, they receive quarterly valuations of their portfolios as well as regular financial planning content and events.

It is a fact that most of our clients have been with us for many, many years as we work very closely with them.

Pensions are a big issue in financial planning and wealth management. Particularly at the moment as there are so many changes going on. We are right in the middle of the transition from the paternalistic State and employer through to the full responsibility pretty much being passed on to the individual.

This is also a huge demographic change, we are living longer, we are retiring earlier despite what the government is trying to do. We have to somehow overcome this problem of having twenty or thirty years of retirement with no earned income. At Investment Quorum it is pretty much one of the cornerstones of what we do for clients. People have pensions that they have gathered throughout their working lives, they have a bit over here and a bit over there. The idea is that it should be consolidated, reviewed, looked at properly and get working for you.

It is incredibly important to do this as young as possible. The last thing anyone wants to do is run out of money in retirement.

It’s hard to describe a typical client of Investment Quorum but I think they have one thing in common they have chosen to get very involved in their own financial affairs but they are looking for help, they are looking for support.

They are usually very involved themselves, they take an interest and they are not ‘fire and forget’. They are from across the spectrum, we have diverse clients, we are City based so we have clients from the City but we also have clients from as far away as Scotland and the West Country, we even have clients in Europe.

But the one thing I think they are looking for in a wealth manager is that very close co-operation. They understand that there are larger organisations out there, perhaps with more resources but they have taken the choice to work with a firm which really puts there interests at the heart of what it does.

We take a six step process to financial planning. In fact we follow the ISO 22222 standard which is the international planning standard. There are a couple of them but that is arguably the main one.

Step 1 is gathering the information from the client that is relevant to the financial planning process.

Step 2 is sitting down with the client and talking to them about their goals, their aspirations, what they are trying to achieve and by when.

Step 3 is analysing that information based upon the discussions and the information gathered and that information could be existing holdings, any investments they already have, mortgages, loans, expected inheritances etc.

Step 4 is constructing the plan.

Step 5, once it has been agreed with the client is implementing the plan and of course,

Step 6 is monitoring and reviewing the plan.

In financial planning terms people have lots of changes in their lives, they get made redundant, they have children, they send children to university they approach retirement so it has to be a dynamic plan that moves and adapts with them and supports them in their financial journey.

Our approach to investment management is based upon a multi-asset approach. So what do I mean by that? What I mean is that it takes cash, bonds, equities, real estate and some alternative investments all blended into a portfolio.

Those portfolios are risk graded because not every client is able to take the same risk or has the same capacity to recover from losses should they occur within the short term.

So we offer a range of seven risk-graded portfolios, multi-asset class all designed to achieve what the client is looking for. Some clients have different requirements also so some of the portfolios are for growth, some are for income and some are for growth and income blended so we have a very comprehensive suite of investment portfolios available to clients.

Investment Quorum differs in that we are one of the smallest in the UK, we have a team of eleven. Wealth management is typically delivered by the private banks or big investment managers.

We think the failings there have been very much that people come and go, the teams can be unstable, the wind changes, new management comes in, different processes happen.

This is what we do for a living, day in day out. It is the only thing we do. Stability of team, stability of client and working extremely closely with those clients to optimise their chances of success.

We see clients every year, many more than once a year and I think that is incredibly important.

The investment quorum is a team. There is myself, there is the Director Private Clients, Petronella West and she has around 25 years of financial planning experience and my Chief Investment Officer, Peter Lowman, has over 40 years professional investment market experience mainly gathered at Cazenove’s but for the last 7 years within Investment Quorum.

The Customer Care Team, Operations, Lisa Ryall and Paul Goodrich have been around for many, many years. We are a very stable team, people tend not to come and go and there as many support members of our team as advisers in the team and we think that this is incredibly important.

We work on a very collegiate basis, everyone is involved with everyone but, of course, clients want stability of advice so they will have a nominated adviser who always looks after them. That’s not to say that they are the only one to work with the client but they always have a named adviser. In fact what we have seen as clients arrive to us from larger organisations they have become very fed up there with being passed from pillar to post, people have come and people go and they have to constantly re-explain what they are looking for so that is not the way we operate.

At Investment Quorum clients it’s a very stable team where you are looked after by the same people.