This area of planning is more complex than personal planning and therefore requires
in depth discussion and understanding of the needs associated with all kinds
of business whether Sole Trader, Partnerships or Limited Companies.
The areas covered in a Business or Corporate review are:

• Succession Planning - ensuring that a business would continue to trade and prosper in the event of a Partner or Director/Shareholder dying or contracting a critical illness. This involves ensuring that the share of the business owned by the deceased or critically ill party is retained by the remaining business owners in return for a cash payment representing the agreed market value of the share. The common names for this planning is Director Share Purchase Protection or Partnership Protection.
• Business Protection - ensuring that any liabilities are covered for repayment in the event of a key persons death or disability and protecting the likely loss of profit caused by these events.
• Employee retention/benefits packages - identifying suitable and affordable packages to offer employees who are valuable to your business and you wish to reward for their loyalty.
• Stakeholder designation - Ensuring that your company complies with government legislation in relation to providing access to a stakeholder scheme if not exempt.
  Pension planning - effective use of pension provision for commercial and personal purposes including property purchase via a Self Invested Pension Plan (SIPP) or small Self Administered Scheme (SSAS).
• Take control of your pension fund!
  Many people are understandably distrustful of investing their money in arrangements packaged by institutions. The taxation benefits of investing through pension funds remain however very attractive, and, the relaxed contribution limits together with the removal of most constraints on investments after April 2006 have massively increased interest in the self-invested personal pension alternative.
  A SIPP enables you to be much closer to the action. Rather than give your money to a faceless life office and then, as many people do, largely ignore what is a happening to it, instead within a SIPP your money firstly goes into a bank account and then you decide yourself or with your professional adviser how you would like it to be invested.

• Why does Asset Allocation matter?
  Different types of investment perform in different ways. In very general terms, riskier investments, such as equities, should provide the best returns over the long term, but they will also be the most volatile. Combining different types of investment in a portfolio can help to even out these swings in value, especially if they are "non-correlated" (i.e. their prices move independently). This is why it usually makes sense even for growth investors to have some exposure to bonds and cash, even though their long term potential is less than that of equities.
  We use a range of Models to provide targets for the Asset Allocation of portfolios for different types of UK based investors. The choice of model depends of your attitude to risk and your requirement for income.
• The importance of good fund selection
  Having decided on an appropriate asset allocation strategy, the next challenge is to identify the investment funds which will achieve this strategy whilst delivering above average returns. This is easier said than done, the only sure-fire route to success is to own a crystal ball. However, thorough research can help stack the odds in your favour. Our research analysts put fund managers through a rigorous selection process in order to identify funds we believe offer above average performance prospects. A key part of this process is interviewing fund managers (we carry out over 250 a year), as it allows our analysts to delve deep below the surface and spot strengths and weaknesses that might otherwise be missed. Our approach to research should help minimise the chances of buying funds that turn out to be 'Dogs'. To find out more about how we analyse fund managers, click here.
• Market Timing
  We strongly recommend investors avoid the temptation to try and second guess the markets. Contrary to popular opinion, even professional investors cannot predict short term market movements with any consistency and successful investing is not based on timing decisions. However, if you are committing a large sum, it does make sense to spread out the timing of the initial investment.