Has anyone heard of ISACO?

le_loup

What a bunch of chancers.
How do we get this whole thread removed?

ISAs_2

Anon2011 - 05-08-2011, 4:51 PM

You said - To view an independant review of ISACO Stephen Sutherland and Liquid Millionaire's dubious service (previously called Filthy Rich Enterprises), read what the Investor's Chronicle had to say:


IMPORTANT: I’m sorry but I couldn't post all the replies due to word restrictions of posts on this forum plus all links to all articles mentioned in Stephen Sutherland's replies below due to forum restriction)

Reply - Part 1

It’s true that Investors Chronicle (IC) didn’t like Liquid Millionaire and they are not the first company to not like it. Unfortunately you are never going to get everybody who reads a book to like it.

In relation to the IC negative review, many of our premium clients who include bankers, doctors, lawyers and dentists felt that the article was inaccurate and raised some points not correct or truthful. They also thought it was misleading and unfair. Many posted comments on the IC website but sadly IC removed them all.

Why they removed them we have no idea?

And so before you decide to blacklist us on the back of one clearly unhappy journalist, I think it’s only fair to hear our side of the story.

Please take a look at the Stephen’s replies to the IC article.

Inaccuracies that our clients weren’t happy about are pointed out.

I hope this helps.

Point 1 - Moira O’Neill:But taking the process forward and chatting to one of their reps...

Stephen Sutherland: First of all I’d like to say I’m sorry that Moira O’Neill and Investors Chronicle have a negative view of me, my book Liquid Millionaire and our company. ISACO has always had a lot of respect for Investors Chronicle and still do.

With regards to Moira’s point about “reps,” ISACO does not employ reps and never have. ISACO employ professionally trained consultants. The consultants handle all enquires relating to what ISACO has to offer such as ISACO’s Shadow Investing System.


Point 2 - Moira O’Neill:I was somewhat surprised by the cost of the service - several thousand pounds for five years payable up front.

Stephen Sutherland: Price is always relevant. Let me explain. A Rolls Royce Phantom would probably appear super expensive to a person who flips burgers for a living, but a FTSE 100 CEO might see it as extremely good value. We’ve found that people who can’t afford the service usually find it expensive.

Shadow Investing is a niche service specifically aimed at affluent private UK based investors. With these investors being extremely time focused, they require a time friendly solution of growing tax-free wealth using Stocks and Shares ISAs, personal pensions, and SIPPs. ISACO’s premium clients receive a time friendly Shadow Investing System that they believe offers great value. Currently ISACO has 306 premium clients.

These are extremely savvy, well informed and educated investors. ISACO's list of clients includes aspiring millionaires, millionaires and multi-millionaires. They include executives, CEOs, managing directors, business owners, entrepreneurs, pioneers, property investors, sports celebrities, best-selling authors and professionals such as doctors, dentists and lawyers.

For example, ISACO have a clientele that include a Sunday Times Rich List member worth £129 million, the original pioneer of health clubs in the UK, a dentist who is a leading authority in cosmetic, implant and restorative dentistry, a professional rugby player, a hedge fund manager and two serial property investors, who at the last count owned 150 properties between them.

Some of the more recent premium client additions include a high net worth client who has over six figures of his portfolio invested in wine and a property investor who currently owns 90 units.

We also have an Irish businessman with a company recently valued at close to £40 million, a company director of Johnson and Johnson, the head of operations at State Street Bank and Trust, a man who has £2.5 million in the bank, a radiographer, a specialist haematologist, a lawyer who works for a major US investment bank, a mergers and acquisitions analyst of a FTSE 100 company, a retired CIO of one of the world's leading international banks, a professor in physics at Oxford university and a senior intelligence official.

ISACO also have a business owner, who has royalty, such as Saudi princes as his clients. Almost all ISACO’s clients pride themselves in the way they conduct due diligence prior to sign up. In fact, ISACO actively encourage prospects to conduct extensive research and analysis to ensure they feel comfortable about doing business with us.

We also ask people to Google us to see what people are saying about us. The internet has changed everything. Spin, embellishment and slick marketing no longer work with this new breed of smart consumers. That’s good because the unsavoury unscrupulous companies will be publicly named and shamed by the masses and there will be nowhere to hide. I’m sure you’ll agree that consumers have now started to pay more attention to the group.

That’s why we always suggest people go look at what the majority of people are saying. This negative review from Investors Chronicle is a clear example of Liquid Millionaire not being everybody’s cup of tea. This is perfectly natural.

Let me ask you a question. When are you going to get one hundred people out of one hundred all in agreement that they like the product? It’s never going to happen is it? My advice would be to take a look at the independent reviews on Amazon.co.uk (search "Liquid Millionaire" ) which shows over 80% of the 197 people who have reviewed Liquid Millionaire scored it either four or five stars. Please also take a look at the book review of Liquid Millionaire on other Financial Times sister sites such as Pensions Management and the FT Adviser.

You may be surprised at what you read especially with Investors Chronicle, Pensions Management and FT Adviser all being part of the Financial Times group of companies. You might also be interested in seeing a client case study which features an interview with a client called Bob Liddell who is a private investor living in Glasgow.

Bob shares with you how he made gains of £185,938 in the first 19 months of signing up for the Shadow Investing System. "I am at a new high, £481,938, a tremendous result and £185,938 up overall in 19 months, what a fabulous result. If I had all my investment placed from day one just think what it would have been! When I consider I paid £10,000 for 10 years of your service, it is without doubt the best investment I have ever made." These are Bob’s own words, not ours.


Point 3 - Moira O’Neill:I have known about the Liquid Millionaire book since it was launched in January 2009, and I thought it would quickly disappear into investment obscurity.It is not a serious investment book, (although it has an eye-catching title), but a marketing promotion tool for Mr Sutherland's investment services. He didn't manage to get any endorsements from the Investors Chronicle, despite engaging a public relations firm to target myself, Dominic Picarda and Maike Currie.

Stephen Sutherland: It does not surprise me that Moira, Dominic and Maike do not like Liquid Millionaire. I say this because unfortunately they do not match the person for whom the book is intended. The books “target market” are the UK’s high net worth community. I wrote the book knowing that some people would read it and be grabbed by the investment opportunity presented in Chapter 5, and then rather than them taking a DIY approach; they’d want ISACO’s help.

This was the reason why I mentioned in my book our Shadow Investing Service, and in hindsight maybe it was a bit overdone. It’s obviously a huge turn off for the readers who the book is not intended for, and for that I apologise. By not mentioning ISACO’s Shadow Investing System, it would have been a disservice to those people for whom the book was intended. However, put the book in the wrong hands and it’s easy for me to see why they would view my book with such disdain.

Point 4 - Moira O’Neill:Thus far, so good. However, "Retire Rich in Just 3 Minutes per Day" is one of the chapter headings. As is "Turning Your First Million into £75 Million". This puts the book firmly into the "get rich quick" category ,which should always be viewed with a healthy dose of suspicion.

Stephen Sutherland: I can assure you the information I share inside Liquid Millionaire is akin to “Get Rich S-L-O-W-L-Y”. To give you an example, in the introduction to Liquid Millionaire I say: Are you a get-rich quicker looking for a sure thing? If you are I can’t help you.” When marketing the book, we constantly state the system is aimed at adventurous investors seeking long-term capital growth.

Anybody who approaches ISACO with a get rich mentality is quickly filtered out during the early part of the enquiry /sales process. Please listen to this short clip of one of my interviews during the early months of 2010. During the interview I repeatedly mention how the investing system we use is aimed at people investing for the long-term. I also state it is not get rich quick and there are no guarantees especially if the market does not perform well. This audio clip is called: What's the catch (this audio is available on Stephen Sutherland .com - check out the media section)

Point 5 - Moira O’Neill: I spoke to Stephen, who says his 250 clients take him on trust. He has lots of high-profile endorsements and numerous good testimonials. However, unless you want to take a high-risk punt, I would concentrate on doing your own investment research.

Stephen Sutherland:I’m really sorry that Moira considers what we do as a high risk punt. The Shadow Investing System is not high risk. High risk investing usually covers things such as investing using CFDs, options, futures, VCT’s and EIS’s. Shadow Investing involves Stocks and Shares ISA investing, personal pensions and SIPPs. Shadow Investing is classified as being suitable for adventurous investors seeking long-term capital growth.

See reply 2 to continue (due to limited imposed on this forum)

ISAs_2

Anon2011 - 05-08-2011, 4:51 PM

You said - To view an independant review of ISACO Stephen Sutherland and Liquid Millionaire's dubious service (previously called Filthy Rich Enterprises), read what the Investor's Chronicle had to say:

IMPORTANT: I’m sorry but I couldn't post all the replies due to word restrictions of posts on this forum plus all links to all articles mentioned in Stephen Sutherland's replies below due to forum restriction)

Reply part 2

Point 6 - Moira O’Neill:While he may have made decent money investing in Isas (and he offers no proof that he has or that his system of investing actually works, that is not in itself a reason to go for his services.


Stephen Sutherland:This is incorrect. To clarify, people tend to talk about and measure my financial success in two areas. The first is individual trading of stocks and options and the second is ISA investing. To be clear, the premium service we at ISACO offer is a shadow investing service that allows you to shadow invest my private Stocks and Shares ISA account activity.

It is NOT a service that allows you to shadow my individual stocks / options trades. I have always conducted my stocks and options trading through Ameritrade and my ISA trading through Fidelity.

My stocks and options Ameritrade account is and always has been denominated in dollars and not sterling. In my book Liquid Millionaire, Chapter 1 describes in great detail the story of how my Ameritrade account jumped from $31,409 into $1.28 million over a 38 month period. Our celebration of the achievement of the goal has been documented in more than one newspaper and this was when Paul and I decided to buy our Dad his dream car, a Bentley Continental with part of the profits I’d made.

I always mention this figure in dollars and not sterling because this gain was made in US currency and not the UK’s. With my ISA investing I have detailed statements from Fidelity that provide evidence of my success with ISAs. I have been investing in Stocks and Shares ISAs (formerly PEP’s) since 1997 and have been fortunate to build up a six figure tax-free account. From 1997 to the end of 2010 the growth on original capital was 1688%.

My brother Paul, the managing director of ISACO also has a six figure ISA account. It pleases clients to know Paul and I have our own money invested. Paul shadow invests me. ISACOs team also shadow invest me. Paul, our team, our clients and I are all in this together. We build wealth together. When I have a good year, our clients do. If I have a poor year, our clients have a poor year.

With my money being on the line, you can imagine why it’s in my best interest to achieve the best possible return for myself, my brother, my team and and my clients. That’s what people who shadow invest me buy into. They want to achieve exactly the same returns as I am getting in a time friendly hassle free way. That’s exactly what the Shadow Investing System does.
I feel humbled that my brother, our team and our clients believe in my ability to “beat” the market over the long-term. Beating the market is something 90% of investment managers fail to do. However I’m lucky enough to be one of the 10% that does beat it. Although there is no guarantee, my brother, our team and our clients understand the probability theory.

They think “If Stephen has beaten the market in the past he’s likely to beat it in the future.” I’d love to say that I beat the market every single year but I don’t. However, that does not worry me as long as overall I’m ahead of the market and that’s exactly where I am, ahead of the Nasdaq Composite over the long-term and that pleases me, our team and our clients. The last two years, although not typical have been particularly kind to us.

In 2009, I made a 62.9% gain and in 2010, 27.2%. In the same period, the Nasdaq Composite, the index we use as our benchmark made a 43.9% in 2009 and a 16.9% gain in 2010.

Point 7 - Moira O’Neill:The book states that his single-year package used to cost £3,000, which seems totally out of proportion when you consider that he is advising on how to invest your annual Isa contribution of £10,680

Stephen Sutherland:In this sentence there are two points I’d like to comment on. The first is the mention of the £3000 price tag for a single year package. Yes its true ISACO used to offer single year packages priced at £3000 per year. In 2007, ISACO came to the conclusion that single year deals were forcing people to think too short-term.

To remedy this situation, in 2008 ISACO made a radical change to its business model. Instead of the minimum term being twelve months, the minimum term became five years. A five year period was chosen due to the minimum time individuals should be invested when investing in Stocks and Shares ISAs.

ISACO switched from a business model of offering single year packages to a model offering multi-year packages. With the one year deals costing £3000 back in 2007, some people now expect to pay circa £15,000 for a five year shadow investing package. However, the price of the five year package calculates at just £1539 per year. Clients who sign up for the package obviously see our price as good value. They vote with their wallets.

Clients gain peace of mind knowing ISACO has in place a no questions asked guarantee. Here’s how it works. During the first 30 days, if for any reason the package does not meet your expectations, you ask for a refund and you receive one no questions asked. ISACO’s policy is to make each and every unsatisfied client happy.

This means if you came on board and made a claim outside the 30 day window, your case would be reviewed and refund payments would be made on a pro-rata basis. For example, if you claimed after twelve months and had four further years to of premium service outstanding, ISACO would refund the price of four years of service rather than a full five year refund.

The second point I’d like to comment on is the rationale behind paying £3000 and the annual ISA contribution of £10,680. People who join us are normally aged between 45 and 65 and already have a substantial amount of tax-free wealth built up in their ISA and pension accounts. A typical client might have something in the region of £250,000 in tax-free wealth when they speak to us for the first time.

These affluent high net worth types often have the intention of continual adding the maximum allowed each and every year. Most of the time, they intend to add the maximum into their partners account too.

Let’s look at a hypothetical situation. Sticking with the £250,000 example, John and Jane Smith make a decision that they intend to add the full ISA allowance each and every year whilst shadow investing me. That means as well as the £250,000 they already have as a lump sum, they plan to invest a further £106,800 over the course of the five years.

ISACO’s aim is 12% annual growth over the long-term and so in this situation, if we achieved our aim, at the end of the five year term, John and Jane’s combined portfolio would be valued at £587,411. This would net them a profit of £230,611.If my maths is correct it would mean after paying for our service, the client would make a clear profit of £230, 611. After paying £7700 for a five year package and making close to quarter of a million pounds, the service in this case would appear to be good value.

However, if for example somebody is just starting out with ISAs who didn’t intend to add the full ISA allowance each and every year, the mismatch would be spotted fast and dealt with accordingly. In other words, the prospect in this case would be rejected due to a clear misfit between the price of the service and the amount of money they have invested.

If we did sell to these people, it would be miss-selling. In other words, it would be classed miss-selling because the deal wouldn’t work for the prospect financially. Another way of saying it would be the exchange of money for service would not make financial sense due to their lack of starting capital and intended capital additions. When packages are sold to the correct people who have the correct levels of wealth, it always makes sound financial sense. Bob Liddell, one of ISACO’s premium clients is a good example of why it’s extremely good value to some but not to others.

Bob paid £10,000 for 10 years of shadow investing and in less than two years, he was showing a healthy profit on his account of nearly two hundred thousand pounds. As a reminder, Bob said: "I am at a new high, £481,938, a tremendous result and £185,938 up overall in 19 months, what a fabulous result. If I had all my investment placed from day one just think what it would have been! When I consider I paid £10,000 for 10 years of your service, it is without doubt the best investment I have ever made."

Point 8- Moira O’Neill: Paying several more thousand pounds up front, committing yourself for five years is way too much for any service, let alone one that is unregulated and hardly transparent. He says he is applying for Financial Services Authority (FSA) regulation, something we could not confirm with the FSA as its policy is not to confirm or deny applications.

Stephen Sutherland: When Moira wrote these comments, ISACO was not FSA regulated. However she failed to mention that ISACO has been in the process of attaining regulation for almost two years. She also didn’t mention that FSA authorisation is imminent.

With deciding to take the long and arduous journey of becoming regulated, hopefully it shows you ISACO’s commitment to high standards of professionalism, openness and transparency.
Authorisation is not a question of if but more a question of when. With ISACO now being at the 99% complete stage of the process, we estimate ISACO will receive official authorisation status some time during June or July 2011.

Point 9 - Moira O’Neill:Any decent independent financial adviser would give you a free initial consultation. But Mr Sutherland is not giving investment advice - he is merely offering a shadow trading service.

Stephen Sutherland: This is untrue. The FSA class the shadow investing service as financial advice. Because the FSA say the shadow investing service constitutes as investment advice, my brother and I have recently taken and passed our IFS Level 3 Certificate for Financial Advisers. Attaining these qualifications were part of the criteria set by the FSA during the authorisation process.



Point 10 - Moira O’Neill: I see ISACO Ltd (his company) was previously called 'FILTHY RICH ENTERPRISES LIMITED'. To my mind that says it all, really.

Stephen Sutherland: If my skin wasn’t as thick as it is, I would probably be offended by such a statement. To some people, this statement implies that ISACO is not a credible financial services business and if that was true, why would ISACO over the last two years take on the long, hard and very complex task of seeking and being granted full FSA authorisation?
Moira called me two days prior to publishing this article and during the ten minutes we spent together I made sure Moira got the facts.

At first she mistakenly believed our business had only been in operation for two years. This is not the case and I corrected her accordingly. I explained that ISACO has been around since November 15th 2001. That means 15th November 2011 is our tenth birthday.

But we haven’t always been ISACO. The business was originally called Filthy Rich Enterprises Ltd. Calling our business a get quick rich name like Filthy Rich was a big blunder on our part and we take full responsibility for it. We’ve never been get rich quick and never will. We used the name because we thought it would grab attention from all those people who wanted to be “Filthy Rich”. In hindsight it was a big mistake to think high net worth clients would be attracted to us with such a name. This name sent out totally the wrong messages about our values and back then it hurt our reputation Businesses do make mistakes and this was one of our first and a large mistake at that.

However, we were only trading under Filthy Rich Enterprises Ltd for just seven months. Seven months! When you look at this in the grand scheme of things, you can see that this offhand comment from Moira is probably irrelevant especially with our business being around for close to ten years.

To give you the facts, we were originally formed in 15th November 2001 and the company name changed on the 19th June 2002 from Filthy Rich Enterprises Ltd to Fast-Track Education Ltd.

Back in 2002, Fast-Track was a unique word rarely used but as the business moved through time, the term Fast-Track became too generic. And so by 2008, we finally came up with something that would last forever. The name ISACO was created by using a combination of ISA and CO as in Company. ISACO was the one we’d been looking for all those years and we are delighted by it. For the record, we changed our name from Fast-Track Education Ltd to ISACO Ltd on the 5th June 2008. ISACO plans to keep this name indefinitely.

I mentioned the history behind the ISACO name to Moira when we spoke, and that’s why I’m surprised she didn’t put it in her article.

Reaper

Wow, a flood of text. I'll be briefer. It seems a lot of money to pay for investment advice unless you have great confidence in the stock picker.

I could have invested far cheaper with legendary stock pickers such as Warren Buffet in Berkshire Hathaway, or in the past with Anthony Bolton in Special Situations (though sadly he has now left and gone off track to China).

However instead of investing in companies/funds like these, they want you to pay them a large sums of money ON TOP of all the fund charges you will have to pay to follow their advice.

Essentially they are offering a Fund of Funds without bothering to buy the funds for you.

Buy in only if you think the stock picker is really worth it, but don't be bamboozled by the flood of self promotion when deciding whether he is worth it.

agrinnall

Rather than feeding the troll I've marked all ISA's posts as spam and reported them as blatantly breaking the rules on company posting.

jimjames

le_loup wrote: »

What a bunch of chancers.
How do we get this whole thread removed?

Propbably a good idea to leave it here so anyone tempted to apply to this outfit can see exactly what they are.

I think the best post was on the first page that showed the charges. £3000 annual charge for investment of your £10000 ISA allowance is probably some record; the additional 1.5% you'll pay to the fund manager in addition seems totally insignificant in comparison!

It is a get rich quick scheme, but sadly not for the investor but the person behind it. 30% charges are guaranteed to make you very poor.

In relation to the types of client - everyone and anyone would appear liable to be duped or conned out of their money. In the local paper this week a well educated and experienced company director had lost £70k to a lottery scam thinking he had won Euromillions. Being educated and company director is no surefire way to guarantee you are not being ripped off.

Ark_Welder

I would love to know which hedge fund manager does not have time to research investments...

gadgetmind

Ark_Welder wrote: »

I would love to know which hedge fund manager does not have time to research investments...

A completely fictitious one!

saliviya27

I never heard about this company before.

mrlittlebigman

I find this thread very interesting as I signed up to ISACO in 2010. The process to sign up is at least 3 X one hour phone calls. They are very thorough. They go through all your income and savings and pension and explain all of the above.
I am only in my 30s so do not have a large amount of money. I am a healthcare professional. It most certainly is not a get rich quick scheme. You are simply informed of the 2 or 3 or 4 funds that Stephen is invested in. I hold my own money with Hargreaves Lansdown. You are encouraged to sign up for 10 years. 5 being the minimum. My long term contract works out at around £900 a year. I have made at least 10 times that since I joined. It isn't for everyone though due to the high startup cost and they are honest that most people they take have at least 100k to invest. I had less than that but they took me because I was younger but had a good outlook on ISA saving.

The thing I like is that Stephen follows the markets for hours a day. I don't have time to do that. Most people don't. I could probably read investment mags and pick my own funds but what I couldn't do is time the market. ISACO tells me when to exit the market into cash and when to get back in. I think this is key to storing the wealth you have made. I don't know enough about investing to be able to do that.

I don't want to sound mean but I think the people on here being negative are perhaps a touch envious that they don't have the funds to join. Just because Investors Chronicle think it's a bad idea doesn't mean it is for everyone. Do they mean it because not everyone has 50-100k to start investing with? If you read the passage you will see that most of the clients are seriously rich people. But not all. Perhaps in a decade or so I can come back and tell you what I am going to retire with (at 55-60yrs) and what I started with and we can all judge from the results?! That will surely be the proof of the pudding! I will happily listen to the 'told you so's' then!!!!

ISACO haven't asked me to write this. I just found this thread. Perhaps you should read the book then call them. Sit through the 3 hours of phone calsl and see if you are suitable. They are also interested in your personality and your investing mind-set. But most of all it is NOT get rich quick. Unless you count over a decade as quick?!
Best wishes.