Wealth & Finance Finance Awards 2015

www.wealthandfinance-intl.com 61 Pro Sport Wealth Management Best for Sports-Focussed Wealth Management Advice – UK As a specialist division within Group IFA, Pro Sport Wealth Management provides Chartered Independent advice to pro- fessional sports people on the management of their wealth. Managing Director, Gareth Griffiths, is a former professional football player, who retrained as a financial adviser in 2006 and now applies his financial acumen to deliver financial advice that’s based on a very clear understanding of the opportunities and challenges clients face. He talks us through his firm and the work they do. Company: Pro Sport Wealth Management Email: [email protected] Telephone: 01204 602 909 Pro Sport Wealth Management, as a part of Group IFA, works together with the other firms in the group as a strong and powerful collective. Our commitment to achieving the highest standards of services runs through our organisation. As an independent company we pride ourselves on forming lasting client relationships built on trust and confidentiality. Whether our client is a current sporting professional, retired, manager or coach, or board director, we work to understand their situation. We work closely with a range of professional service businesses such as accountants, solicitors and agents and are very proud to have been named an Official Partner of the PFA since 2011. In order to achieve our high quality client service it is imperative that our advisers possess specialist knowledge and understating of the culture in this niche area of advice. We have encountered many incidences of general practitioners being unfamiliar with the planning around a sports person’s life cycle which can lead to unfavourable outcomes. As a gen- eral rule paying down debt aggressively and preparing for decumulation from age 35 at best, as it determines different planning solutions than HNW with a much longer accumulation phase. Looking to the future, one challenge we will face will be to manage our workload due to increased demand for advice. We feel therefore that there is potential for good advisers who want to explore further opportu- nities and join a firm in an interesting area of finance. The challenges as we move forward will be to provide best advice and tax efficient solutions to clients who receive the majority of their income by PAYE. For example, these individuals will see restrictions on pension funding and the loss of early retirement which means alternative solu- tions than traditional pension funding is required. Even for those with protected retirement, annual funding allowances and lifetime allowance have been severely affected with further restrictions in April 2016. Overall, the future is bright and we are actively seeking to enter discus- sions with quality advisers and would welcome applicants with relevant qualifications, experience and preferably existing client banks. We are very keen to maintain and improve our high standards of service and broaden coverage nationally.