Investment committee
Laura is also a member of the Monahans investment committee. Monahans serves 1400 clients, primarily through the Monahans Wealth Management Service, which is run using the Standard Life wrap. The firm operates a range of model portfolios, which includes five growth portfolios, from defensive to aggressive, two ethical portfolios, one lower risk and one higher, and an income portfolio. The investment committee reviews them on a quarterly basis, rebalancing as necessary.
“Currently we are using Standard Life multi-manager funds and we have a blend of active and passive strategies – using a more passive strategy towards the lower risk end of the investment range. Every quarter we review these against other multi-manager offerings,” Laura explains.
She adds: “The portfolios used to contain individual unit trusts of up to 15 funds but we recognised that we are not investment specialists, thus we conducted due diligence on a lot of different multi-manager fund managers, speaking with them directly, looking at their past performance and their techniques, their attitude to risk and how that matched the risk profile of our client bank. The Standard Life multi-manager fund range came out top. But we are always reviewing them against rivals – and we’ll make changes as necessary and as part of the rebalancing process. This allows us to concentrate on tax planning and wealth planning, which is where we see our expertise.”
To ascertain the client’s attitude to risk, the firm uses a mix of descriptive paragraphs and feedback from the individual clients. “We used to use a questionnaire that was tick box,” Laura says, “but we felt it was too limited and too risky just to obtain a result from that, and then to go back to the clients with it and say this is your risk number – we felt they might not understand what it meant. So now we use set paragraphs linked to the investment portfolios and we ask the client to look at each and say which most resonates with them. But we ask them to add comments to that choice, which we then follow up with them before we make a decision on their actual attitude to risk. There’s always a discussion – because the rating may apply to everything they have or it may just apply to their pension, for example. It’s very much an open process.”
Bath Young Professionals
Outside of office hours Laura sits on the committee of the Bath Young Professionals group. This is an informal network of younger professionals as opposed to senior partners and directors, she explains. “There’s not much in the way of networking opportunities at less senior levels and through structured events and gatherings, we get to find out what our local peers are doing, make contacts and get leads for new clients. There are solicitors and accountants at the events which for us means we can sometimes get cross referrals and build useful relationships.”
Although an informal organisation, Bath Young Professionals is run by a committee of staff from five sponsoring firms, one of which is Monahans. The committee meets every six weeks and runs quarterly events. “It used to be ad-hoc, but when we set up the committee we formalised things; we’ve implemented structured regular events, at which we get 40-50 attendees, and we have a bank account and a LinkedIn Group. It can be a great boost to your confidence to see what other people are doing and then maybe to bring that back and use it in your own way within your own company.”
With a clear commitment to both paraplanning as a career and to Monahans as a firm, what else drives Laura to get out of bed in the morning? “It’s the research and the technical detail. It’s going the extra mile to find something out or to push for an answer. It’s making a difference over and above what someone else might do,” she says – a sentiment with which many paraplanners may concur.
