Fowler Drew are fully-integrated financial planners and discretionary portfolio managers for individuals and families. As a general rule, the best financial planning requires real investment expertise and the best investment management is organised to deliver specific, personal planning objectives. But specifically any goal-based or outcome-driven approach to investing necessarily requires both skills and that they be integrated.
The firm is a leader in applying to private wealth the principles and practices developed in institutional funds that have become known as Liability Driven Investment. It is also a leader in charging flat fees for all services, to avoid the conflicts of interest and cross subsidies inherent in portfolio-based fees.
The firm's techniques are highly quantitative. Probabilistic modelling of goal outcomes at specified time horizons is at the heart of the process by which 'true' risk preferences are discovered; goals planned and resourced; goal-based portfolios then dynamically managed to deliver the planning outcomes within the agreed tolerances, with forward-looking progress reports.
It is 'independent' (owned by its management) and is not 'restricted' in its advice scope. Clients previously had relationships with private banks, stockbrokers, wealth-management boutiques or investment-led IFAs but its low-cost, flat-fee approach also attracts formerly self-directed investors.
Until 2010 the business was known as No Monkey Business, after founder Stuart Fowler's book, No Monkey Business: what Investors need to know and why (FTPrentice Hall 2002).