We are specialists in managing investment trust focused portfolios which are complemented by a carefully selected range of exchange-traded funds (ETFs). We provide financial planning, advice and discretionary investment management services to individuals (including ISAs, JISAs, GIAs, Onshore & Offshore Bonds), companies, pension schemes (including SIPP & SSAS), Trusts and Charities. We offer leading expertise and pride ourselves on providing clients with exceptional levels of personal service
Like our investment approach, we believe in simplicity and transparency when it comes to charges. We encounter countless clients who do not know what they are paying for their existing financial advice or investment management services. Complex and opaque charging structures do not help.
For transparency, all our charges can be found below. They are simple, easy to understand and competitive relative to the level of expertise, experience and personal service provided.
Written Recommendation Report
Simple one-off fixed cost of £595
We charge a discretionary investment
management fee of 1% per annum*,
payable monthly in arrears
Written Recommendation Report
See table below
We charge a discretionary investment
management fee of 1% per annum*,
payable monthly in arrears
To ensure ongoing suitability of your advice
throughout your financial journey
Cost – 0.5% of funds under management
*VAT is not payable on our Discretionary Investment Management Service
If a client wishes for Baron & Grant to manage their portfolio, the FCA stipulates we need to provide one-off ‘gateway’ financial advice to determine the most suitable portfolio, for which we charge £595. This fee represents less than 0.30% of our minimum £200,000 investment.
Should clients require wide-ranging financial advice, one of our qualified financial advisers can help cater for an extensive range of personal requirements – from protecting a client’s family, pension and estate planning, to passing on wealth to chosen beneficiaries.
| Band | Initial Charge | Charge for Full Band |
|---|---|---|
| £0 to £500,000 | 2.0% | £10,000 |
| £500,000 to £1m | 1.0% | £5,000 |
| £1m+ | 0.0% | Nil |
Ongoing Advice Service (Optional) – To ensure ongoing suitability of your advice throughout your financial journey. Our ongoing advice fee is 0.5% of funds under management.
Our investment team manage investment trust focused portfolios which are complemented by a carefully selected range of exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
This approach is different to the vast majority of investment or wealth managers who run portfolios consisting in large part of direct equities and/or other forms of collective funds such as unit trusts and open-ended investment companies (OEICS). Such funds on average have been shown to underperform investment trusts.
We offer a range of eleven model portfolios which span the full spectrum of risk-adjusted returns, thus enabling us to fully accommodate our clients’ different investment objectives and profiles.
Seven portfolios are categorised by Dynamic Planner Profiles 4 to 8 – the risk/reward remit increasing with the profiles. Five portfolios (B&G 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8) are focused on capital growth, while two are income-orientated, aligned to risk profiles 5 and 7, with a targeted yield in excess of 5%. We also offer four unconstrained portfolios – Positive Impact, ISA, High Yield (with a targeted yield in excess of 6%) and Best Ideas.
The major element of each portfolio consists of proven and respected investment trusts, which are then complemented by a carefully-selected number of ETFs. We are fortunate in that there is a vast array of different investment options from which to construct our portfolios.
We continually monitor the portfolios to ensure an optimum balance between remit and risk. The investment committee formally meets once a month and portfolio changes are undertaken quarterly, or whenever required.
By providing financial planning, advice and discretionary investment management in-house, clients benefit from a cohesive approach to their wealth management.
Our discretionary investment management fee is 1% per annum, payable monthly in arrears.
The minimum investment for this service is £200,000.
The FCA rightly requires the disclosure of all costs – our own and the third parties we use.
B&G do not hold client cash or assets. Client investments are managed on what is known as an investment/wrap platform. Our chosen platform partners are:
Our chosen platform partners provide B&G with on-line dealing, valuation and custody services. Clients have the ability to login and access their portfolio valuation(s) at any time.
Each platform partner has its own charging structure, however annual platform charges tend to start around 0.25% of the portfolio value. This charge tiers down for higher portfolio values and family linking facilities are available (platform dependent). Charges are deducted monthly in arrears and are calculated in relation to a daily valuation.
A detailed breakdown of the recommended platform costs and charges will be provided as part of our advice process.
There are many benefits associated with investment/wrap platforms. These include:
Personal Finance Portal (PFP) is a service available only from a financial adviser. We use the portal to gather personal and financial information to try and ensure an efficient onboarding process. It also provides B&G with:
There has been an ongoing debate around the disclosure of investment trust costs within retail products and services. Investment trusts are listed companies, with a share price as well as a NAV/share – investors receive the share price performance and not the NAV performance.
Stock markets enable foreseeable costs to be fully accounted for (or “discounted”) in the share price. Requiring the ongoing costs of investment companies to be aggregated in the product costs of portfolios that hold them results in the double-counting of those costs.
The FCA has recently issued interim measures that allow both investment companies themselves, and the funds/portfolios that hold them, to disaggregate their total cost figures into component parts.
If the investment trusts costs were excluded from the single aggregated OCF figure, the weighted cost of our portfolios would be the weighted cost of the ETFs c.0.05% – 0.20%. Some of our unconstrained portfolios contain solely investment trusts, hence the OCF for these portfolios would be zero.
B&G have carried out extensive due diligence on our platform partners to ensure financial strength, resilience, stability, ongoing investment, functionality and competitive fee structures.
Your cash and assets are held separately from their accounts and from those with whom they place the assets. As such, should a platform be wound up, your cash and assets will remain yours and any administrator is obliged to return them to you as part of the wind down process.
Clients also have access to the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) for qualifying investments and cash – subject to the limits.
Please find each platform’s security of assets literature below:
M&G Wealth – Security of Assets
AJ Bell Investcentre – Security of Assets
Further detail on the security of assets for the respective platforms can be provided upon request.
B&G is an independent, owner managed business which was established in 2019. B&G does not carry any debt and has a strong balance sheet and liquidity position. The UK Investment Firms Prudential Regime (IFPR) came into force on 1st January 2022 and B&G is classed as a MIFIDPRU Investment Firm. As a MIFIDPRU investment firm, B&G’s own funds requirements will be the highest of:
The FCA expects firms to assess at least annually, the full financial resource requirements in relation to specific risks that a firm faces.
As a firm that falls within scope of the IFPR, B&G has submitted its Internal Capital Adequacy and Risk Assessment (ICARA) to the FCA.
Based on the firm’s unaudited financial accounts for the year ended 31st December 2024, B&G had more than 6.9 times its FCA own funds requirements.
Our compliance consultants are threesixty Services LLP. Threesixty delivers support and compliance services to over 950 directly regulated IFA practices, including over 100 discretionary investment management firms, equating to over 10,000 registered individuals. Their experts provide an unparalleled understanding of the issues impacting discretionary management firms, and their service ensures our in-house compliance resource gets the help, expertise and external opinion it needs.
With regards to our track record, whilst we have only been authorised since the 4th January 2021, we can point to the track record of John Baron’s actual real investment trust portfolios (‘Growth’ and ‘Income’) in his popular monthly column in the Investors’ Chronicle magazine. John has reported on these portfolios monthly, trade by trade, since the 1st January 2009. These are two of ten actual portfolios that John has managed, which have an auditable track record of performance.
Our portfolios share the same foundation, DNA, style, and themes.