Where do I find a financial advisor specialised for high net worth clients?

amyk01

I have a NW of 7 figures and need financial advice. I’m not even doing the basics such as maxing out an ISA etc. I’m looking for someone to asses my situation, and help me utilise any accounts/services which can be greatly beneficial to me, but also steer me towards achieving future goals. I have no idea where to find a reputable and reliable financial advisor. I don’t know how trustworthy these people are too? Thanks

george4064

try www.unbiased.co.uk

Make sure it's an Independent Financial Advisor (IFA) rather than a Financial Advisor.

jamei305

High net worth individuals are usually considered to be those with 8 figure sums or more, certainly from HMRC's perspective. Most IFAs would have plenty of clients with 7 figure sums, for example over a million people are at risk of breaching their pension LTA.

Albermarle

amyk01 said:

I have a NW of 7 figures and need financial advice. I’m not even doing the basics such as maxing out an ISA etc. I’m looking for someone to asses my situation, and help me utilise any accounts/services which can be greatly beneficial to me, but also steer me towards achieving future goals. I have no idea where to find a reputable and reliable financial advisor. I don’t know how trustworthy these people are too? Thanks

Any IFA will be used to dealing with clients with a £Million +. , especially in the more prosperous parts of the country .
You probably would only need someone a bit more specialised if you had multi Millions, or a very complicated family/life situation.

Trustworthiness /fraud/criminality, is not really a big issue, although always the chance of finding a bad egg in any business. . The advisors are highly regulated and have to go through set procedures . Everything is documented in case of any future complaints .
Like in all jobs though, some will be better than others and pricing is not always the same.

There a lot of 'wealth management ' companies looking for business. As a generalisation , they will be larger than your local IFA company , with lots of glossy brochures but almost inevitably more expensive . Even here though any advice you get is still highly regulated and should still be of good quality.

Typically there is an initial free discussion/get to know you session.
Then an initial fee - in your case could be say 1% /£10K and then an ongoing fee of 0.5% pa 

amyk01

Thanks for the replies and I’m actually happy to hear that 7+ figures is common as it means they will be experienced with this.

I’ve searched unbiased and locally I can only find the names of small firms and random individuals. I think I would feel more reassured with a somewhat reputable name I’ve heard of e.g does the likes of Coutts etc offer this kind of service?

Or as per the above reply will I just be paying extortionate fees and not receiving a better service in any way?

amyk01

Also I assume if I was to go with a familiar named bank, that they would only recommend me their products rather than the best available out there?

ColdIron

Generally yes, most would be tied salesmen

Alexland

A 7 figure net worth could be anything from a million or two in which case that's not unusual and a lot of that is often tied up in property etc but on the upper end as you get towards 8 digits that's when most of us would recognise you as HNW. From an advisor's perspective they will be more interested in the size of the investable assets that you might give them to manage.

GeoffTF

According to the ONS, to scrape the top percentile, you need about £2 million, but the statistics are a few years old. It is probably nearer £3 million now. One in a hundred is not rare. The poorer members of society cannot afford an adviser.

You will save a huge amount of money if you hire an adviser for a fixed fee assessment, and look after the investments yourself. You can use a packaged fund like Vanguard LifeStrategy, either on Vanguard's own platform or, more cheaply, iWeb (which is owned by Lloyds Bank).

Education is invaluable. I have not read it, but DIY Investor by Andy Bell is well regarded. The Monevator website is also good. Look up "Winning the Loser's Game" and the articles by Lars Kroijer to start.

Alexland

GeoffTF said:

Education is invaluable. I have not read it, but DIY Investor by Andy Bell is well regarded.

Yes financial education is far better than an advisor constantly nibbling away at your market returns but I accept it's not a topic everyone enjoys so Independent advisors can help those who need it. Personally I don't rate that book (we got it free from AJ Bell under a signup offer) but I was pleased by how much we sold it for on ebay.

tebbins

You can save money by going DIY but you can (emphasis on the can, not should expect to or will) save yourself a headache and some potentially expensive mistakes using a good IFA.