The Right Way To Invest

Our primary investment advice for clients is to always invest in regulated investments and regulated investment products. Even then, we recommend using only products that are capable of being converted back into cash quickly should the client have such a need.

We do NOT engage in advice regarding private equity, personal loan notes or geared property investments. As a leading Investment Adviser in South Dublin, in our long experience many of these type of assets have poor or no investor protection and are generally unsuited for all but the very high risk investor.

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Invest After You Have Access To Emergency Cash

An essential part of any investment strategy is to ensure that the investor always has access to a sufficient amount of their capital when they need it.

The first step in our investment management process is to determine the future cashflow needs of each individual client so as to understand what long term amount can be set aside as a rainy day fund. This approach ensures that you will not need to sell out of your long term investments at a time when the markets may be experiencing a downward slide.

Thereafter, our investment philosophy can be summarised as predominantly using equity based investments for the longer term in a tax effective and cost efficient way. While we also believe that Government Bonds, Corporate Bonds and Property have a role to play for some clients’ portfolios their inclusion is usually to diversify to reduce volatility in a portfolio’s value in the short term.

Matching Your Investment With Your Risk Appetite

For many people, especially those who are uncomfortable with stock market volatility having a diversified portfolio over equities, government bonds, property and cash provides them with a peace of mind for their future investing.

While we have many client portfolios that are so designed, our preferred investment philosophy can be summarised as predominantly using equity based investments for the longer term in a tax effective and cost efficient way. By so doing we can obtain enhanced returns especially for pension funds as well as individuals who have no immediate or medium term need for cash holdings.

Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (“SFDR”)

In accordance with the European Commission’s Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) obligations (Regulation (EU) 2019/2088) as they relate to authorised Financial Advisers in the Republic of Ireland, we are currently compiling our response to its investment advice criteria scope in terms of its inclusion of environmental, social and governance (ESG) sustainability considerations, and will be making this guidance available to existing clients as a part of their own individual regular formal reviews. Any new clients requiring investment advice will benefit from this review.

Questions you may have..

If you require potential ongoing access to your money for emergencies or for specific intended use such a new house deposit, then your focus will always be very short term. As such, using the funds for a possible short-term investment is just a form of gambling but with serious consequences because of the amount of funds at stake. The reason why we say gambling is that if you need to draw down the funds quickly and unexpectedly you might run the risk of incurring short term falls in values which could get converted in permanent losses.

Pension products that are available from the life assurance companies are where most people save for their retirement. These, in turn, utilise tax shelters approved by the Revenue Commissioners and typically invest in stockmarket related bonds and shares as well as commercial property.

There are also specialist pension trustee services with particular Revenue Commissioners approval that allow investment in private property and private companies (under specific tax rules). These tend to be higher risk investments and the last 20 years or so has seen such approaches generating partial or total investment losses. So, investor beware, so to speak.

But having money in retirement is not just about having a pension fund. It is very important to have accumulated personal cash in bank accounts or in An Post products so that liquidity is always available in a tax efficient way as post retirement pension products are fully taxable on drawdown.

There are always opportunities to get good or “better” investment returns but you need to ensure that any such opportunities are genuine and any risk is properly managed.

Equities (also known as shares) generate long term average returns of 3% p.a. plus inflation. Cash at the moment of writing (March 2021) may actually be earning negative returns. The returns on mixed funds containing equities, cash, government bonds and commercial property will range from between 1% to 2% p.a. long term, depending on the blend of the underlying asset classes. Long term, in investment circles, usually means eight or more years.

If, for some reason you encounter a potential investment that appears to offer significant returns in excess of these ranges then it is likely to be either an exceptionally high-risk investment or you have stumbled across a possible scam. In either case, our broad advice would be to tread very carefully if not avoid such “opportunities”.

Using Our Services

How We Work

As one of Ireland’s leading financial planning firms based in south Dublin, there’s very little we haven’t encountered to help our clients prepare for. Our experience, technical knowledge and willingness to see things from your perspective means that whatever you have in mind for you and your family’s future we can help you plan the best way to get there.

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What The Aspire Life Plan™ Provides

We look for more than the financial facts and need to understand what shapes your goals and aspirations and how you want to live your future life.

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How We Are Paid

We are a fee based financial planning firm. This means that we can focus on delivering the best advice for our clients needs and aren’t compromised by ties to financial product providers such as investment companies and pension providers.

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