When designing your investment portfolio, we take into account key considerations before recommending the correct 'home' for your money, including:

• How much do you want to invest?

• Do you need an income?

• For how long do you wish to invest?

• What is your attitude to risk?

• What are the taxation implications?

Since we are completely impartial, we select products from the entire market place and always take into account all relevant factors such as the economic outlook, tax implications, past performance, product charges, the fund managers' investment style and, most importantly, your attitude to risk. Our investment process starts with a discussion about your willingness to accept investment risk, your expectations and objectives and investment time horizon, as these factors will typically drive the investment selection and asset allocation. Whilst many providers have a range of perfectly acceptable managed funds, it is sometimes more appropriate to appoint a discretionary fund manager who will ultimately have day-to-day responsibility for your investment and we work with you to select a suitable manager and monitor their performance against your own benchmark, mandate or objectives established within the full financial review process. It is our role as your adviser to help you choose the right investments in order to help you meet your objectives. What you need to consider is what those objectives are. Our advisers will work with you to help explore key issues and create a greater level of self-understanding to establish a blueprint for future financial planning as part of an ongoing review process. Everybody wants investments which cannot fail, and which continuously offer high returns. Unfortunately this ideal combination is not often available in the real world. Sensible investment planning revolves around understanding what your investment aims really are. In short, we will help you determine an investment strategy appropriate for your needs, and use the investments best suited to your investment attitude and tax position.

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Individual Savings Accounts (ISAs)

Personal Equity Plans (PEPs)

Tax-efficient investments available in the 1980s and 1990s. Many people invested in PEPs and still have investments in PEPs now. The tax rules have changed since PEPs were replaced by Individual Saving Accounts (ISAs) and all former PEPs are now automatically referred to as ISAs but there are still investment options you can explore without losing your former PEP's tax advantages.

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Unit Trusts and OEICs

Unit trusts and open ended investment companies (OEICs) are collective investments, which allow individual investors to pool their money into a fund which is then invested in a wide range of shares or fixed interest stocks. Collective investments can provide clients with expert management and an opportunity to reduce risk through diversification. They offer suitable investment opportunities for most investors by allowing access to an extensive range of funds all with different aims and objectives. The number of companies and securities invested in should be greater than an average investor could achieve cost effectively through a portfolio invested directly in stocks and shares. The fund is then professionally managed to achieve maximum returns consistent with the stated investment objectives of the fund.

Unit Trusts

A unit trust is a fund of stock market investments divided into equal portions called units. The price of units is calculated regularly, normally on a daily basis and is governed by the value of the underlying stocks and shares in the fund. This price will rise and fall with movements in the price of those stocks and shares. There will usually be two prices quoted for such units, an offer price and a bid price. The offer price is higher than the bid price, normally by 6-7% and is the price the investor pays to buy the units. The lower price, the bid price, is the price that an investor would receive when selling the units. This difference represents the charge made by the fund manager and the costs incurred in buying and selling shares within the fund.

Open Ended Investment Companies (OEICs)

OEICs are a new form of pooled investment introduced into the UK in the first half of 1996. They were largely introduced as a more flexible and simplified alternative to the established vehicle of unit trusts and unlike unit trusts, they can be marketed anywhere within the European Union. They are in fact very similar to unit trusts and are managed in the same way. However, instead of buying units, the investor buys shares in the OEIC and the value of these shares is directly linked to the value of all the assets in the fund. Instead of a bid-offer price structure the shares are quoted on the stock market at a single price to which buying or selling costs are added.

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Ethical Investments

Investment Bonds

Non-qualifying policies offered by life assurance companies and are used to invest one-off lump sum payments. They allow access to a number of funds such as With Profits, Distribution and Property funds, as well as the life companies own internal unit-linked funds. Many investment bonds now offer a greater range of investment through external links to unit trust/ OEIC funds. Although they are classed as life assurance policies they will only have a minimal amount of life cover – i.e. 101% of the policy value at death. One of the benefits is that they allow tax deferral on withdrawals from the policy and can be used in effective tax planning, particularly for higher rate taxpayers.

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Venture Capital Trusts (VCTs)

First established in 1995 to encourage investment in vibrant smaller companies. Because such companies tend to be higher risk than large ‘blue chips’, the Government offers tax breaks as an incentive to attract investors. For much of their life VCTs have been the preserve of wealthy investors, as the primary tax benefit was the ability to defer capital gains tax liabilities.

VCTs are very similar to investment trusts. They raise money from individual investors and then pool this so that they can acquire a portfolio of different investments, which helps to spread the risk. VCT shares are listed on the London Stock Exchange.

VCTs are more expensive than most other types of investment and typically involve greater investment risk, i.e. the potential for loss. Most of a VCT’s assets will be invested in small UK trading companies. These do not have to be start-up ventures, but you should regard the overall risk level as being higher than that of a unit trust investing in ‘blue chip’ companies. Risk varies between different VCTs, usually depending on their investment policy.

Because VCTs launched in the current tax year must invest in smaller companies than in the past, bear in mind that VCTs may no longer be appropriate for you even if they were in the past.

VCT’s are an area requiring specialist advice to assess whether the tax breaks on offer are an adequate ‘trade-off’ for the increased cost and risk typically associated with them. Please contact us if you require further information.

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AIM Investment

Alternate Investment Market is a market for small, young and growing companies operated by the London Stock Exchange as a regulated market of a Recognised Investment Exchange and set up in June 1995. It replaced the Unlisted Securities Market (USM). The market provides an opportunity for companies to raise capital for expansion, a trading facility and a way of establishing a market value for their shares.

There are about 400 companies listed on AIM. The market cap of the index varies quite widely. AIM companies tend to trade on wider spreads than companies on the main market, and liquidity can be a problem.

One of the advantages of investing in AIM companies is that for tax purposes they are treated as 'unquoted investments' (even though they are quoted). The significance of this is that under certain circumstances these can be treated as Business Assets for Capital Gains Tax purposes and through this relief and exemption a number of Inheritance Tax mitigation schemes have been created.

Again, AIM investments are an area requiring specialist advice to assess whether the tax breaks on offer are an adequate ‘trade-off’ for the increased cost and risk typically associated with them. Please contact us if you require further information.

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EIS Investments

Maximum Investment

An individual can invest up to a total of £100,000 in an EIS company in the current tax year.

(i) Income Tax Relief A qualifying individual may deduct an amount equal to income tax at the lower rate of tax (currently 20%) on an amount or amounts subscribed for qualifying shares in a qualifying company, from his total liability to income tax for the year in which the eligible shares are issued. This relief is presently given for the year in which the investment is made at a rate of 20% of the qualifying investment. In certain circumstances, part of this relief can be carried back to the previous tax year. However, the total amount of income tax relief cannot exceed an individual’s tax liability before other relief given by way of discharge of tax.

(ii) Capital Gains Tax ("CGT") Relief To the extent that EIS tax relief is given and not withdrawn, any capital gain accruing to an individual investor on the first disposal of eligible shares, which takes place three or more years after the date of issue of such shares, is not chargeable to CGT.

(iii) Loss Relief Where an investor incurs a loss on the first disposal of eligible shares, this loss (calculated after deducting income tax relief from the cost of the investment) may be set against taxable income of the same year or the previous year at the election of the investor. Alternatively, the loss may be offset against capital gains in the tax year of disposal. Any excess losses can be carried forward for relief against future capital gains. At current rates, the operation of this relief, together with income tax relief, limits the potential downside to 48% of the costs of your original investment.