Ian was introduced to us by his accountant 18 months ago. He’d built up a profitable business in the construction industry. The first thing he said when we met was “I want to find my way out of this”. He’d enjoyed what he did and worked extremely hard but at the age of 53 felt that it had taken its toll.
After getting to know him, it transpired that Ian had taken some fairly big risks in growing his company, but not with the profits he had made from it. He’d bought a couple of run down three-bedroom houses which he’d done up himself and rented them out as he felt that he knew the property game well. Most of his other assets were sitting in cash deposits within the company and in his personal name. He was aware that inflation was eating into his cash with interest rates having been so low for several years and this was starting to grate a little.
-We created a long term financial plan for him using our financial planning software which allowed him to picture his overall wealth now and what was likely to happen to it over time
-The outcome of this plan showed him in clear charts and pictures that he could afford to sell the business for less than he thought he needed, therefore realising that he could “get out quicker” if this was what he wanted
-The plan also showed that even though he was worried about the long-term impact of inflation eroding his cash deposits, he would not run out of money if he chose to leave them in place, taking no investment risk with it at all
-However, he still wanted to invest some of this money ideally to provide a legacy for his daughters. He was comfortable with the thought of investing half of his cash reserves in an investment portfolio taking on a moderate level of risk. This was because he knew he didn’t need to access it for at least 12-15 years, therefore giving it time to grow and withstand the bumps in the markets
-The output from the software also showed that he could take more trips to see one of his daughters in Australia, flying business class if he wanted to which he’d never done.
-We worked with his accountant on using an Isle of Man pension scheme to tax efficiently extract some of the cash reserves from his company
-We sorted out a problem his eldest daughter had with a UK work-based pension that she did not understand, and gave her some general direction with her finances.
Armed with a much better insight of how his financial future looks and the things he can afford to do with his life, Ian is still running his company!
He realised that there were aspects of it that he really enjoyed and at 53 felt too young to retire. He has brought in someone who in his words can help with the “heavy lifting” and is in the early stages of creating a succession plan for the company to be sold to him when Ian decides to retire.
Ian is now working 25-35-hour weeks rather than the 60 hours he was previously working and is taking more time off during non-peak times for the business.
Ian was relatively wealthy when he came to us. What he couldn’t do was find his way through the maze of this wealth and work out how things looked in the long term, partly because he was too busy to.
We have helped him to link his wealth to his life and family goals.
