Bruce Ewen, MBA, CIM, CFP
Senior Financial Advisor, Manulife Wealth Inc.
Every family, every individual has their own personal needs. This individuality is a cornerstone in how I conservatively manage the assets of my clients. I care about helping my clients realize their financial goals and objectives. I invest their capital as carefully as I do my own because I know that their dreams for their family’s financial future are as sacred to them as my own goals are to me.
My Planning Philosophy: A Holistic Financial Planning Approach
In today’s complex marketplace, I believe people need more than just investment advice. As a Senior Financial Advisor we must provide more advice in other areas to round out a financial plan. Many questions I face every day include:
- Will I have enough assets to support the lifestyle I want during retirement? What kind of an income can I expect and receive from my investments.
- How can I tax efficiently have my estate settled when I pass away? Can I afford to gift money to my children now? How does my Will and Powers of Attorney function in all of this?
- Should I contribute to a RRSP, TFSA, or pay down debt?
- What are other ways of supplementing my income once I retire? Who is going to look after me later in life? How do I replace the benefits I had while working?
- How do I remove money from my business in the most tax-efficient manner?
These are just some of the conversations we need to have in order to develop and flesh out a financial plan. Every client has their own unique set of circumstances, and every plan needs to be flexible to account for unexpected changes. By developing a comprehensive financial plan we can build a long term strategy to meet your financial goals and objectives and help deal with any curve balls thrown our way.
As a holder of the Certified Financial Planner designation, I work closely with my clients to develop a comprehensive plan designed to meet their long-term income goals. This entails looking after the cornerstone of any plan: Retirement Planning, Investment Planning, Tax Planning and Estate Planning.
Fees and Performance: Transparency
Many investors are unaware of their fees and/or performance provided by their current advisor(s). My aim is for my clients to have a full and transparent disclosure of any and all fees associated with their investment accounts. I also believe in establishing clearly defined goals in order to measure performance of investments and portfolios and track your progress towards meeting your objectives.
Financial Review
Over time, we also need to review how we are doing :
- Personalized Retirement Plan - Develop a personalized retirement plan. Whether you are still building to retirement, or looking to draw an income in retirement we need to properly map out how the plan will proceed going forward.
- Fee Analysis: This is a constant review to ensure you understand any costs associated with your portfolio and whether there are ways to lower these costs.
- Return Analysis: How is your portfolio and the underlying investments performing? Are they meeting your needs? Do changes to the portfolio need to be made? Are your current investments performing well enough for you to be able to meet your goals and objectives?
- Risk Analysis: We also must look at the overall risk of investments in your portfolio(s). Do your current investments match your risk tolerance? Looking at risk from another perspective, is your family/estate properly protected in case of premature death? It is important to understand how illness and death can impact your overall lifestyle.
- Service: We need to discuss how often we will sit down to review your situation over the course of the coming year.