"Wrap Up" your Investments

As part of our overall investment strategy, finance 4 chiropractors' financial advisors, Kelsall Steele are now recommending that clients simplify the process of investing with the use of a consolidated portfolio service or "wrap" account.

What is a wrap?

Put simply, a wrap account is a new concept in portfolio administration, designed to assist the investor and their adviser with arranging transactions, reporting and administering an investment portfolio or pension arrangement. 
In other words, it simplifies the way your investments are managed.

There are many advantages for you investors:

. Ease of transactions - one point of entry to access your portfolio and arrange transactions.

. Reduced administration - consolidated income and capital gains tax statements from one source to help simplify the tax year end reporting for tax return purposes. As your planner, we can spend more time on your portfolio strategy and other general financial planning issues.

. Control - we will be able to report, arrange transactions and monitor your portfolio from one, centralised online platform. 

. Enhanced choice - providing the investment and/or security are tradable it can be accessed through the wrap provider. The retail investor has access to many funds that would otherwise be off limits.

. Access - you will be able to access your portfolio online via our website or by telephone to get an up to date valuation or to perform a number of transactions such as withdrawing income without the need for any paperwork.

. Cost and Economies of scale - The avoidance of marketing and sales costs, and the purchasing power of the wrap provider results in favourable discounts on initial and annual management charges of individual funds chosen. Charges associated with the buying and selling of stocks and shares can also be reduced due to the bulk trading by the wrap provider.

Choice of Wrap Account

There are a growing number of providers within the UK, of which we believe only the current offerings by Nucleus, Transact and Seven Investment Management are suitable for our clients and investment process. 

Of the three favoured providers, all of which provide good investment choice, transparency of charges and value for money, we favour the Paradigm Wrap offered by Nucleus Financial Group.

Why the Paradigm Wrap?

The Paradigm Wrap is offered by the Nucleus Financial Group whom are uniquely owned by a number of independent financial adviser (IFA) firms and the founding IFA shareholders have been instrumental in specifying, developing and delivering the new service on behalf of their clients. The future direction of the wrap will also be determined by the participating IFAs with their clients' financial futures in mind. 

We are not shareholders of this company but see this ownership of the product as being beneficial to our clients through the development of a product by advisers for their clients.

Nucleus Financial Services provides access to a general account for directly-held investments and the Scottish Friendly Group provides the tax wrappers for an ISA, a PEP, a personal pension and a protected rights pension to hold contracted-out payments. Scottish Friendly is also the third party administrator for the Nucleus wrap.

Scottish Friendly has roots stretching back to 1862 and now operates as a financial services group dedicated to the efficient provision of a wide range of financial products and services. It accounts for over 380,000 policyholders and has assets under management of over £600 million as at December 2006.

Both Nucleus Financial Services Limited and Scottish Friendly Assurance are regulated by the Financial Services Authority and, as such, are responsible for ensuring that clients' money is properly audited and reconciled on a regular basis.

To provide additional security, assets held in a nominee name on clients' behalf are monitored through a 'custody' service provided by independent third parties.

The Paradigm Wrap - A best of breed solution

We have conducted 'whole of market' research using our independent research tool Aequos Engage.   This research returned only three products that were potentials as our wrap of choice.  These where:

We have chosen the Paradigm Wrap because it offers a simple and cost effective service that clarifies what each of the key stakeholders is paid for the services that they provide.  The current charges for the wrap is 0.5% per annum, which pays for:

o Access to a full range of tax wrappers
o A full range of discounted funds (1800+) at institutional rate 0% initial ½ usual AMC
o Access to a full range of other assets
o The ability to save into the account at no initial cost to you
o The ability to take regular income or capital amounts easily from the portfolio
o The freedom to trade quickly online
o The ability to re-register assets on and off the platform without any cost to you
o Assets can be re-registered off the platform in specie
o Bi-annual portfolio valuations and yearly tax statements
o Online Portfolio Valuation

This provides us with the right tools to be able to effectively support you to achieve your financial goals, though-out the life of our relationship.

To Summarise

The Nucleus Wrap enables all of your investments to be managed in one place, with reduced administration costs, and maximum flexibility.  In addition to the significant cost discounts which can be obtained, Rebalancing (which keeps your investments in line with your attitude to investment risk), is a key feature of the plan and acts to smooth the investment return.

We believe that this is very much the future of investment advice and have already started to look at this type of investment structure for other chiropractors. 

We look forward to discussing how we can help you with your investment portfolio and for more details please contact us:

T: 01872 242800
E: support@finance4chiropractors.com