A holistic plan for all your financial goals

You’ve accumulated a certain degree of wealth – but how can you make sure that it’s managed and protected while growing at the same time?

Achieving this requires a well-developed and proven wealth management process that integrates with your holistic financial planning in terms of your short, medium, and long-term investment goals. At Cornerstone Investment Advisory, we partner with you to put your money to work, by finding the perfect investment opportunities that match your particular appetite for risk while delivering maximum returns.

In managing your wealth, we follow a well-defined, trusted and tested process:

1. Due diligence.

We first develop an understanding of your current situation in order to construct an investment portfolio that suits your investor personality as well as your financial and personal circumstances.

2. Investment risk tolerance questionnaire.

Our financial personality framework combines psychology with economic theory to try understanding your tolerance for risk or volatility. This sets the foundation of our investment relationship going forward.

3. Asset allocation.

We determine how your capital should be allocated between the various asset classes to match your investor profile. This includes diversifying across a range of local and global asset classes to manage your portfolio risk.

4. Fund selection.

Our discretionary fund management partners have access to a global universe of funds which includes a complete investment and operational review to ensure the selected funds are compliant, reputable and reliable.

Portfolio construction.

We formulate an optimal asset allocation with appropriately selected funds to get to your target portfolio allocation. This will change in time due to shifts in the market environment and evolving conditions.

Monitor and rebalance.

We monitor your portfolio’s performance and make adjustments over time to continually ensure a positive result that remains in line with your overall investment objectives.

From equities, property, bonds, offshore asset allocation to unit trusts, ETF’s, TFSA’s, retirement planning, global investment structuring, choosing the right investment option can be a tricky task. With us as your specialist investment advisor, we take a long term approach to help you achieve your personal goals and objectives.

Wealth Management FAQ’s

One of the main risks retirees face is outliving their retirement savings. Many of us will live for 30 years beyond retirement age, so we expect our retirement savings to ‘work’ for as long as we have worked. With this in mind, the ideal time to start saving for your retirement is with your first pay cheque. A good rule of thumb to allow you to maintain your lifestyle later on is to save 17% of your salary starting at age 25. If you start later, you will naturally need to save more or consider retiring later.

A unit trust is a type of investment that provides easy and affordable access to financial markets. Your money is combined with the money of other investors and our investment managers use the pool of money to buy underlying investments, such as equities, bonds, cash and property, depending on the unit trust objective. The unit trust is split into equal portions called ‘units’ that are allocated to you according to the amount of money you invest and the price of the units on the day you buy them. Unit trusts are beneficial as you buy units in the unit trust of your choice, you decide when and how many units to buy, and you own the units until you decide to sell them.

Contributions to a retirement annuity are tax-deductible (subject to certain limits). This means that you may be taxed on a lower taxable income amount and could receive money back from SARS at the end of the tax year. The income and capital growth earned on your investment until you retire is also tax-free.

One of the main risks retirees face is outliving their retirement savings. Many of us will live for 30 years beyond retirement age, so we expect our retirement savings to ‘work’ for as long as we have worked. With this in mind, the ideal time to start saving for your retirement is with your first pay cheque. A good rule of thumb to allow you to maintain your lifestyle later on is to save 17% of your salary starting at age 25. If you start later, you will naturally need to save more or consider retiring later.

A unit trust is a type of investment that provides easy and affordable access to financial markets. Your money is combined with the money of other investors and our investment managers use the pool of money to buy underlying investments, such as equities, bonds, cash and property, depending on the unit trust objective. The unit trust is split into equal portions called ‘units’ that are allocated to you according to the amount of money you invest and the price of the units on the day you buy them. Unit trusts are beneficial as you buy units in the unit trust of your choice, you decide when and how many units to buy, and you own the units until you decide to sell them.

Contributions to a retirement annuity are tax-deductible (subject to certain limits). This means that you may be taxed on a lower taxable income amount and could receive money back from SARS at the end of the tax year. The income and capital growth earned on your investment until you retire is also tax-free.