Financial Planning
Financial planning in South Africa means different things for different people, but in essence, it is the process of developing strategies to assist clients in managing their financial affairs to meet their life goals.
Financial planning is important, regardless of your level of income or the number of assets you own. It helps you to identify and achieve your financial objectives and lifestyle goals by providing you with guidance, advice, and ensuring that the necessary policies and investments are put in place, and are managed and re-evaluated on an ongoing basis.
In order to customise a financial plan for you, BR Wealth will conduct a full needs analysis in order to accurately ascertain your financial position and determine what your financial needs are in order to achieve your goals. We take into consideration your financial and other responsibilities, age, lifestyle, availability of funds, existing portfolio and attitude to risk. We also consider your lifestyle goals and objectives, financial goals and objectives and the timeframe within which you wish to achieve them.
This allows us to develop an integrated financial plan for you, as well as explanations of why such recommendations have been made. We help to keep you focused on achieving the goals you have set, aim to foresee any problems that may hinder progress and continuously adapt your financial plan in line with current economic conditions and your changing needs.
In the ongoing management of your portfolio, we go one step further by compiling an in-depth Asset Allocation, which provides an overview of the asset class spilt of your portfolio, reflects the amount of risk you are taking and calculates what level of growth your portfolio has achieved and what level of growth and funding is required to achieve your goals and lifestyle.
- Liquidity of available funds for capital needs.
- Allocation of investments by company.
- Risk rating of each client’s overall investment portfolio.
- The current and historic performance of the portfolio.
- Withdrawals and additions since our last review.
- Income and draw-down sheet since our last review.
Another useful tool is the Retirement Forecaster, which simulates the future performance of your current financial portfolio, and allows one to vary assumptions such as tax rates, inflation rates, and rates of return, and takes into consideration the time value of money.
The programme is useful in managing your retirement portfolio and allows one to experiment with different future scenarios and select which strategy to follow for achieving the best outcome.
Retirement Planning
Retirement planning is more than simply contributing to an investment, a pension, provident, or retirement annuity fund.
Retirement planning requires knowledge of tax law, compound interest, costs of investments, time value of money calculations, and investment strategy. You will need specific advice across the following three stages.
Planning for Retirement
If you still have a way to go to retirement, we will advise you on how to adequately provide for sufficient capital at retirement to maintain your standard of living.
Planning at Retirement
As you are approaching your retirement date, you may need to know what impact tax will have on your retirement benefits and discretionary capital. At retirement, you will want to know what your tax-free lump sum is and how much to take as a lump sum versus an annuity and what type of annuity to choose, together with structuring your discretionary capital.
Planning After Retirement
If you have already retired, you will need investment advice in respect of your retirement capital. You will need to ensure that your retirement funds will provide the level of income and capital that is required in order to maintain your lifestyle.
The Retirement Forecaster is a sophisticated programme we use which assists with the above three steps. It is a program that simulates the future performance of your current financial portfolio. This allows one to vary assumptions such as tax rates, inflation rates and rates of return and takes into consideration the time value of money.
It is useful in managing your retirement portfolio, as it allows one to experiment with different scenarios and select which strategy to follow for achieving the best outcome, taking into account your specific income and capital needs and the anticipated investment returns of your portfolio after costs.
An in-depth analysis is undertaken on each client’s portfolio, using sophisticated programmes to ascertain:
1. The existing level of adequacy of the present investments, taking into account their level of anticipated returns, volatility, liquidity, risk profile and the costs of the investments.
2. The combined asset allocation of each client’s overall portfolio of investments and retirement funds to ascertain the level of risk which the portfolio carries and how this matches to the client’s risk profile and stated objectives and goals in the agreed time frame.
3. Adjustments are then made to bring the portfolio in line with the stated objectives and rebalancing of the asset allocation.
4. The portfolio is then reviewed with the client on a regular basis.
With the continuous market changes, it remains imperative to moderate expectations about the level of income that can be sustained over a full retirement.
Estate Planning
One takes a lifetime to build an estate, but how much time does one take to protect it?
Estate Planning is an ongoing process, which is used to ensure that there is a holistic plan to take care of your personal and financial matters during your lifetime and after you pass away.
We can assist you with your Estate Planning process and structure a plan to ensure that your assets are protected and your estate is set up in a tax-efficient manner.
Our holistic approach is built around consistent advice and clear, specific solutions. Some of the various aspects of financial planning, which are to be considered when planning an estate, are as follows:
● Wills and Trusts
● Investment Planning
● Financial Planning
● Succession Planning – Business Ownership
● Offshore Investments and Structures
● Taxation – Estate Duty, CGT (minimizing tax)
● Insurance Protection – Liquidity in the Estate
In addition to our financial planning services, we use the services of experts suitably qualified in law and taxation.
Individual Risk Planning
BR Wealth offers risk planning to help clients achieve personal and business financial security.
Some aspects to consider in the assessment of a client’s need for risk cover for liquidity in the estate (for example):
- Death duties
- Children’s schooling
- Sureties which one has signed for
- Liability cover (overdrafts, bonds, Hire Purchase)
- Disability – lump sum and income replacement
- Dread disease cover
Business Assurance
Financial Planning for Businesses
Business assurance assists in identifying, evaluating and dealing with the risk of death or disability of partners, shareholders or key members of the business.
To replace a key person in your business – be it an owner, shareholder or employee with specialised skills – can be costly. Not only do you lose the knowledge and experience of that person but, if they are integral to the running of your business, it could affect your business’s future.
Once it has been established that there would be a financial loss in the event of a key person’s death or disability, a life policy is taken out on the life of a key person. In the event of his/her death or disability, the business would receive the policy proceeds and use them to offset the loss caused by the death or disability.
In the event of a death or disability of a partner or co-shareholder, there must be an agreement in place to clearly define how this event will be dealt with, regarding the share ownership and loan accounts.
Life and disability cover is usually taken out on each other’s lives to fund this buy and sell agreement to enable the survivors to purchase the deceased or disabled partner’s/shareholder’s share of the business.
It provides a business with a plan that allows it to continue if one or more of the co-owners were to die or be disabled.
Contingent Liability Assurance is taken out by the business on the life of the individual that stands surety for the debts of the business.
In the event of his/her death or disability, the insurance policy will provide the necessary funds to repay the outstanding debt, thereby releasing the surety’s personal estate from this liability.
Corporate Cash Management
A Competitive and Efficient Money Management System
We offer a corporate cash management system that is of huge benefit to our clients and assists not only with our client’s monthly cash flow requirements, but is used extensively to house money whilst waiting for investment opportunities.
● Call – A premium-priced call account which offers immediate access to deposits with no minimum balance requirements.
● Term/Fixed Deposit – A full range of fixed deposit accounts which offer fixed interest rates for specified periods from 2 to 365 days, with a minimum entry level of R5,000.
● CCM Money Fund – A variable rate deposit account which offers immediate access, with rates linked to the average yields of the top four South African money market funds on any given day.
Our clients can appoint us to open an account which would enable us to transact on their Corporate Cash Manager on their behalf and provide them with the following:
● Personalised service
● A dedicated administration team that supports Corporate Cash Manager
● Attractive money market interest rates
● No transactional charges, other than cash deposits or other unusual transactions
● Call accounts, notice deposits and other dynamic products such as the CCM Money Fund
● Term deposits ranging from 2 days to 365 days
Employee Benefits
Employee Benefits are used to increase the economic security of staff members and, in doing so, improve worker retention across the organisation.
BR Wealth is perfectly positioned to provide structured retirement packages for corporates and financial planning for their employees.
This specialist service saves management administration time in areas where they may not be sufficiently skilled and ensures employees maximise their retirement benefits.
The aim of a retirement fund is to provide benefits for its members when they retire from employment. By having a retirement fund in place, a company or employer creates a sense of security and peace of mind for both the employer and employees.
Group Life Assurance: Provides member’s dependents with a lump sum should a member die in service.
Lump Sum Disability: This disability benefit is paid upfront to replace the loss of future income in the event of total and permanent disability.
Permanent Health Insurance (PHI): Provides a regular income in the event of a person suffering a loss of earned income by being unable to work due to sickness or accident.
Trauma Benefits: Trauma cover pays a lump sum in the event of a diagnosis of a critical illness.