Our Approach
We value your intelligence and that is why we freely disclose how our approach works.
Explore the details in more depth, and call us for clarification or a discussion around your individual circumstances.
Values alignment
Many new clients approach us after feeling disenchanted with large superannuation funds and want an individualised service with a direct point of contact. If you can relate to this scenario, our wealth advisers are refreshingly approachable and ready to guide you towards your financial aspirations.
We offer a comprehensive initial consultation for you to determine if you align with our values and approach. There is never any pressure to engage our service, and we are always willing to offer an alternative if we cannot assist you.
Business philosophy
Our client-first approach guides us in decision-making across all aspects of our business. We continually scrutinise the entire financial services market to ensure we recommend products that represent value for money for our clients.
Internally, we only invest in areas of our business that offer a tangible benefit to you – and that is why you will not find us in a waterfront CBD office. Combined with internal audits of our performance and future projections, we maintain a robust business model that you can rely on.
Investment philosophy
Our disciplined active AIM+O approach uses a combination of investment processes to proactively generate wealth. We pursue opportunities as opposed to taking a passive approach, and implement cash flow and risk management strategies to build security against market volatility.
This contrarian style of management leverages technical, fundamental and behavioural finance analysis and is endorsed under our ASIC licencing conditions. Minimum AIM+O investment is $500,000, and our integrated service allows you to use SMSF as capital.
Paper profits and losses
In our experience, we have not seen any retirees able to live on paper profits. So in addition to carefully researching and selecting the companies we invest your funds in, our approach also encompasses proactive risk management, money management system design and cash flow management. This ensures paper losses are not incurred, as you have financial safeguards in place to ensure you do not need to sell a stock for a loss.
Trading
We do multi intra-day, intra-week, intra-month or intra-year trades, depending on the benchmark profits agreed upon with clients. All profits are secured back to cash to build security, ensuring you are not exposed to potential market bubbles, such as the GFC.
We then watch the market for an opportunity to buy the same 20–30 stocks at a lower price to sell when profit benchmarks are achieved. This strategy is how we maintain cash flow for clients, particularly retirees.
Options
To generate additional income for clients, we write (sell) options over the major 20–30 stocks in a client’s portfolio. The options trading strategies we use are:
- Covered call writing
- Short put writing (leveraging can be used)
- Straddles
- Strangles
We can also short or long the ASX XJO Index (S&P/ASX200) to pursue profit opportunities with lower risk and volatility. These strategies are discussed and signed off by you before implementation.
Risk management
We cannot know everything, so several strategies are in place to minimise your risk if you pursue an AIM+O service with us.
- Limiting stock holdings to 20–30 ASX100 companies with strong cash flows and dividends. We invest only in industries where we understand how they make money, their business strategy and the risks these enterprises take.
- Investing in cash and unlisted major mortgage funds for diversification and cash flow management. We use unlisted major mortgage funds with proven risk management and consistently stable interest payments. These funds are a vehicle for disconnecting your portfolio risk from stock market volatility.
- Maintaining an exit strategy based on price, opportunity, cost, time and volatility considering overall portfolio impact.
- Undertaking monthly reviews of AIM+O trading results and conduct due diligence of pre-agreed AIM+O investments at least six monthly.
- Providing you with a Statement of Advice (SOA) and Engaged Client Agreement (ECA) that contain a transparent overview of AIM+O strategies, systems, processes, risks, profits and fees.
Fee transparency
Our preference is to cut out all unnecessary middlemen, administrative costs and institutions that do not add value to your portfolio profits.
We achieve this by operating a full MDA service, which means we are not controlled by institutional ownership or fund manager bias. This means you are not exposed to institutional overheads, corporate executive bonuses or decisions made only in the interest of an institution rather than the client.
All financial advice fees are clearly detailed, and AIM+O clients engage us under a performance-fee model. This means you only pay for portfolio management if we make you a profit, giving you the reassurance that we are always working to better your financial performance.
Accessibility
When you enter into an AIM+O agreement, your funds remain accessible to you at all times. All of our services are performed in your name, allowing you to retain full access to your money and accounts. This allows you to see where your money is at all times, giving you clarity and peace of mind.
