Wealth & finance International - Wealth & Money Management Awards 2015

Wealth & Money Management Awards 2015 16 Best Fee Based Financial Planning - UK Company: Burlington Associates Limited Name: Mandeep Panesar / Gary Lucas Email: [email protected] or [email protected] Web Address: www.burlingtonfs.com Address: 61 Cheapside, London, EC2V 6AX Telephone: 020 7329 7500 Burlington Associates is a firm committed to undertaking true Financial Planning for its clients. Our mission is to help professionals make better financial decisions this is driven by the fact we care about them and the decisions they make. The aim is to give our clients a clearer understanding of their financial position and options they have, giving them the confidence, clarity and peace of mind in making better financial decisions. We are committed to using language they understand and making seemingly complex decisions simpler. As a firm we focus on client outcomes from the outset and the advising team at Burlington work together regularly, giving a family office feel where possible, as well as being service led. Our strong belief that long term cash flow forecasting sets a route map for our clients financial future. Additionally that a client’s position should be considered in totality not one area at a time as the former correctly identi- fies there is a level of inter-dependency that cannot be ignored. We believe the cornerstones of financial planning require them to have adequate resources (emergency cash reserves) which then in turn need to be maintained, along with protecting their long term financial position, prior to dealing with investments and other financial planning issues. However we do undertake transactional services, where still required and additionally deal with mortgage requirements as well as provide corporate financial advice. Primarily our client base comprises of investment professionals, partners in legal firms and medical professionals. Our corporate clients primarily deal with us on the basis of benefits for their staff including group protection arrange- ments and auto enrolment plus key-man and shareholder protection issues. We have a clearly documented service / investment proposition for our cli- ents. These documents outline the level of service a client can expect and the fees applicable to each level of service. We believe that transparency is very important for both the client and the firm in order that no confusion can be seen in terms of expectations set. We stick to what we are good at and align ourselves with other profes- sionals that offer complementary services. Sticking to the path and not veering off because something new or exciting is being offered that is not within our field of expertise (or comfort zone) helps us deliver good client outcomes on a continual basis. Our culture is one of openness and honesty at all times. We develop and maintain this by asking all clients whom we do business with, for feedback via questionnaires. We also do this internally through a performance im- provement plan which all staff are consulted on each year. Feedback we receive is discussed and considered at board level and adjustments made to the proposition or services we provide based upon feedback given. Those elements relating to the internal staff feedback are collated and the result is a Performance improvement plan which is then implemented in the coming year. Additionally we have external compliance support partner visits and various systems and controls monitoring KPI’s that have been put in place including pre-sale compliance on all sales to ensure the company is comfortable with what a client is to be provided with in terms of advice as well as paperwork. We believe our Continuing Professional Development is vital to our service. This takes many forms and these include reading varied trade press and regular bulletins from our compliance support partner as well as those published by our regulator. Attending seminars offered by subject experts and discussion with those experts to understand potential problems for our clients is another way we deal with this challenge. Additionally we have monthly adviser team meetings where ideas and opinions are shared as well. Investment houses and insurance companies also send a variety of information to us which adds to our understanding of developments, and if deemed necessary we invite them in to share this further with the advising team. In recent times Pension Freedom has to be the biggest area, not only in terms of client awareness but also adviser information available. We ex- pect to see a raft of further developments and products to meet the chal- lenges brought about by these sizeable changes in the pension landscape. In closing, we feel honoured to be have been given this award and it shows that our commitment to true financial planning has been rec- ognised within our profession. We owe most to the team spirit within the business and strength of our oneness of approach to improving client outcomes at every opportunity. Awards like these are very important to show the profession that we are moving in the right direction under a strong leadership team with client outcomes at the heart of everything we do.