Wealth Management

Wealth Management Cork

There are many things to consider before investing your money, such as how quickly you might need access to your money and how much risk you want to take. We’ll work with you to find the best investment strategy and advise on the benefits and risks of all the investment options open to you.

What to Consider Before Investing Your Money

Only when we fully understand your personal circumstances and goals, will we advise on the best investment strategy. Before making an investment recommendation there are four areas that must be discussed.

• Access: This is all about how quickly you might need access to your money – a crucial factor in determining your investment choice. Longer term investments usually offer the best security.
• Security:  The higher the level of risk the higher the potential returns and potential losses.
• Growth: This criterion is linked to both access and security. Investment growth will depend greatly on how secure you want your initial investment and how long you want to tie your money up for.
• Time and Timing.  If you invest all your money at one time you are taking the view that the asset you are investing in will appreciate from that point.  However if you spread your investment over a period of time(monthly) you can assume additional fund risk as you are not depending on the markets to perform from a fixed date.  This is called Euro Cost Averaging.

Once these are discussed  we will then advise on the advantages and disadvantages of various assets into which you may invest:

• Shares
• Property
• Bonds
• Cash
• Commodities
• Packaged investment products

We normally advise our investors to spread their investment to minimise risk. Diversification or spreading your investments across asset classes is the key to building a successful portfolio. For example, the higher the Share or Equity content of an investment, then the higher the potential for return, but the potential volatility, or risk, is also greater.

As investment advisors, one of our jobs is to help you get the right balance in your portfolio through careful selection of investment products, based upon your objectives.

Capital Protected Bonds / Tracker Bonds

Also known as Tracker Bonds these products are a very useful means of gaining exposure to certain assets such as equities/bonds/commodities while also preserving your capital.

How do these work?

Most of your money is placed in a long term fixed rate deposit account. This will accumulate interest to grow back to your total investment amount, thereby providing the capital protection.
The balance is the then used to pay for fees and to purchase the option on the underlying strategy.

Factors affecting the Participation in the Underlying Strategy

1. The longer the term the less money is needed to be placed on deposit and so more is available for the option. This will increase your participation in the underlying strategy and so increase the potential interest earned.
2. The lower the volatility of the underlying strategy the lower the price of the option. This will result in better participation in the growth of the underlying index or fund.

Capital Secure products are best suited to individuals who want to preserve capital but also want the opportunity of achieving returns in excess of bank deposits.

In MBC Financial we assess the products available to us under a number of headings to ensure the investor is getting the most suitable investment.

These headings are:

• Level of Capital Protection: This is normally 100% or 90%
• Term: This is usually between 3 and 5 years
• Maximum Return: Some products will cap the amount of growth achievable.
• Underlying Investment: This can be equities, commodities, bonds, or a combination.

Example:

If an investor takes a view that the stock markets are going to grow over the next 5 years it is possible to capture some of this growth while also providing a capital guarantee. It must be noted however that the potential returns are reduced when you have a capital guarantee.

Unit Linked Funds

These are open ended funds that can be invested in a wide range of shares, bonds, cash and/or property. These can be used to build a very comprehensive investment portfolio.

Before putting together your portfolio, your account manager at MBC Financial will take the time to find out how much risk you want to take in order to achieve a greater return on investment and make sure you completely understand the implications of your investment. There are 4 main categories of investor:

• Cautious
• Medium
• Aggressive
• Speculative

We offer a range of options from a relatively safe portfolio through to aggressive and speculative investments, with more risk attached, but also the opportunity of bigger returns over a smaller period of time. Once your portfolio is in place, we will review it annually to make sure you have the best performing portfolio for your needs.

You can even set up an arrangement to drip-feed cash into your portfolio over a period of time either from a lump sum deposit or as part of regular savings plan – an excellent option if you investing for a specific purpose, such as third level education for a child.