Total Asset Life Cycle Wealth Management

Total Asset, Life Cycle, Wealth Management is the management of total financial needs and total financial assets over an individual’s lifetime.

All financial advice, whether it be insurance, pensions, estate and general financial planning, depends on the amount of capital an individual has both now and in the future and the relationship between that capital and lifetime financial needs.

Since the amount of capital a client has and will accumulate determines the need for all financial services, no financial advice, let alone a product, can effectively be given without a total asset life cycle wealth analysis.

Of all the elements of financial services, the management of assets is the most complex and, the most important to the management of long term financial needs.

To manage assets to meet lifetime financial needs, assets need to be structured to meet these needs as and when they arise.

Assets also need to be managed to balance risk and return not just now, but for all future points in time where financial needs are arising, at the same time. An apparent and impossible juggling act without the disciplines and systems to do the job.

To do this, the advisor needs to know all planned income and capital expenditure and the disposition of all existing assets as well as future additions to assets from savings and capital.

If a portfolio is truly personalised, the amount allocated to low risk assets (to cash, to fixed interest and specific maturities) and to equities (to each global market, to each specific market allocation, market cap, style, yield) should be unique to each client.

In addition to investment expertise and the resources needed to fund a central investment resource (economic, market and security research, domestic and global strategy, asset allocation and risk management) advisors need the expertise and systems able to do the following.

Model and manage the ability of assets to meet needs over an investor’s lifetime.
Protect financial needs against significant stock market and economic risk at all times – no client should ever be affected by natural significant risks such as stock market crashes and economic recessions.
Optimise the balance between risk and return over time and at a point in time given the client’s financial needs, risk preferences and stock market and economic risk.

Every client’s financial needs, existing assets, preferences and size and timing of portfolio inflows (savings from income and capital) and outflows (income and capital expenditure) are different and have a direct and unique impact on portfolio structure, planning and management.

Total asset, life cycle wealth management demands total personalisation for each and every investor as the most viable way of efficiently managing risk and return.

The technology and the expertise needed to deliver high quality, low cost, personalised asset and wealth management services to the individual investor exists. Personalisation should no longer be a byword for complexity, time and cost but an easy to deliver “must-have”.

If the portfolio is structured properly, if the assumptions used to plan for your future security cover significant risks your portfolio should be capable of dealing with virtually all natural and significant market and economic risks.