Investment Planning
Three things decide the outcome over twenty years: what you own, what it costs you to own it, and whether you stay invested through the bad years. We work on all three, in that order.
01 · Scope
What this covers, and what it does not.
This service covers building and running a portfolio across liquid asset classes — cash, fixed income, equities and commodities — with access to private markets where suitability, capacity for loss and minimum commitments allow. It covers asset allocation, total cost, tax placement, rebalancing discipline and honest reporting.
It does not cover stock tips, market timing, or anything sold on the strength of a forecast. It also does not decide which wrappers you hold; Wealth Planning sets the structure, and the portfolio is then placed inside it.
02 · What we examine
The schedule we work through with you.
Before any recommendation is made, these are the items we go through together. Nothing here is unusual; what is unusual is seeing all of it in one place.
- Objective & horizon
- Income, growth, or a dated liability — and the actual year the money is needed. A twenty-year horizon and a four-year horizon are different problems wearing the same clothes.
- Capacity for loss
- Not appetite for risk. What a 30% drawdown would force you to change about your life. Appetite is a feeling; capacity is arithmetic.
- Current allocation, looked through
- The real exposure once overlapping funds are seen through to their holdings. Eleven funds routinely turn out to be far more concentrated than the client believes.
- Total cost
- Fund charges, platform fee, transaction costs and adviser fee added together into one number. Cost is the only part of the future return that is known in advance.
- Tax placement
- Which assets sit in which wrapper. Interest-bearing and high-turnover assets in sheltered space; holdings whose gains can be realised against the £3,000 annual exempt amount where that allowance would otherwise be wasted.
- Currency exposure
- How much of a sterling liability is funded in dollars, and whether that mismatch is a deliberate decision or an accident of fund selection.
- Concentration & liquidity
- Single-name, single-sector and unlisted exposure, and how quickly each holding could realistically be sold — including on a bad day, which is when it matters.
- Behaviour
- What you actually did in 2008, in March 2020, and in 2022. The honest answer shapes the allocation more than any risk questionnaire.
03 · How we work
The order the work happens in.
The sequence matters as much as the content. Doing these in a different order is how good intentions turn into expensive corrections.
-
Fix the horizon before the allocation
The date the money is needed determines how much volatility the portfolio can absorb. Every other decision follows from it, and reversing that order is the most common way portfolios end up wrong.
-
Set the allocation, then choose instruments
Asset allocation drives most of the variation in long-run outcomes. Instrument selection is the smaller decision, and it is made second.
-
Strip out cost that is not earning its fee
Every basis point of cost is certain; the return that is meant to justify it is not. Active management is kept where the manager has a defensible reason to outperform, and replaced where it does not.
-
Place assets by tax, not by habit
The same portfolio held in the wrong order across wrappers can cost several thousand pounds a year for no change in what you own.
-
Rebalance by rule, not by mood
Thresholds are agreed in advance, in writing, so that rebalancing happens at exactly the moments it feels most uncomfortable — which is when it is worth most.
-
Report plainly
What it did, what it cost, what changed and why. Including the years it fell.
04 · A worked example
What this looks like in practice.
The same portfolio, at 0.61% less a year
A client arrived with eleven funds spread across two platforms. Looked through, four of them held substantially the same US large-cap exposure, and the fixed income sat in a general investment account where its interest was fully taxable while pension space went unused.
Consolidating onto one platform, replacing three active funds with index equivalents where the manager had no defensible edge, and moving the fixed income into the pension cut the total annual cost from 1.42% to 0.81% and reduced eleven holdings to six. On a £600,000 portfolio that is £3,660 a year retained — before anyone makes a single judgement about which fund will perform better.
Composed from the kind of work we do, with details changed and combined so that no client is identifiable. It is an illustration of an approach, not a promise of a particular outcome.
05 · Risks & disclosure
The part that is usually set in small type.
It is set here at the same size as everything else, because it is the same size in real life.
Your capital is at risk
All investments carry risk, including the possible loss of principal. The value of investments and any income from them can fall as well as rise, and you may get back less than you originally invested. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results.
Private markets are different
Where private-market access is appropriate, it carries illiquidity, longer lock-ups, capital-call obligations and a real possibility of total loss on an individual holding. It is only ever a minority of a portfolio, and only where capacity for loss genuinely supports it.
Cost savings are not returns
The example above is arithmetic, not performance. Reducing cost improves the odds; it does not promise an outcome.
Tax treatment depends on you
Any tax treatment referred to depends on your individual circumstances and may be subject to change in the future. The placement decisions described above are worth what they are worth under today's rules.
This page is general information, not advice
Nothing on this page constitutes personalised advice or a recommendation to buy, sell or proceed with any specific product, service or provider, and it does not take account of your particular financial situation, objectives or risk tolerance. Personalised advice is only provided following a full assessment of your circumstances and objectives. Advice should be sought before acting on any of the general information contained here.
Figures and allowances
Every allowance, threshold and rate on this page is stated for the UK 2026/27 tax year and is included to show how the work is done, not as advice you should act on. Thresholds change at Budgets, and tax treatment depends on your individual circumstances.
Regulatory information
Rai Wealth Management Ltd is registered as a private limited company in England and Wales under company number 12318787. Registered office: 6 Westholme Gardens, Ruislip, HA4 8QJ, United Kingdom. Rai Wealth Management Ltd works under a Contract for Services Agreement with Maystone Capital Ltd, which is directly authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority under reference number 758412. Rai Wealth Management Ltd is not directly authorised and is not an Appointed Representative; all regulated activities are undertaken by Maystone Capital Ltd. Rai Wealth Management Ltd is the data controller of personal data you provide to us and is registered with the Information Commissioner's Office under reference number ZA759299.
The full risk warnings and disclaimer apply to everything on this page.
Abhineet RaiFounder · Wealth Adviser · prepared this page
The other services
One relationship, the whole picture.
These are not separate products bought from separate people. Each service assumes the others exist.
Speak to us
A conversation, before anything else.
Tell us where you are and what you would like to achieve. We will reply personally — and if this is not the right service for you, we will say so.