Hi all,

Happy Budget Day for 2018. In addition to any Budget reading you’ve done this morning, if you would like us to send you a summary document then please let us know. We welcome any questions you have.

The recent Royal Commission has highlighted the flaws in an industry that to me was always so obviously beset with conflicts. Most of us would know of someone that has been on the wrong end of poor and conflicted advice unfortunately from some of Australia’s most respected financial institutions. This this is an opportune time to get on the front foot to recap with you the differences and benefits to you of the Fortitude model, the business I set up just over 9 years ago. All of you will likely know the following.

We have our own Australian Financial Services License (AFSL) hence report directly each year to ASIC and are not beholden to any institutionally owned dealer group or intermediaries. We have quarterly external compliance audits and are annually externally financially audited as required by ASIC.

Having a Chartered Accounting background, from the outset, my long term goal was to build a successful Advice business based on integrity, trust, transparency and alignment … on providing advice tailored to what is important for you in your lives and actually charging fixed and agreed dollar based fees for this service. This was against the industry norm of being ‘free of charge’ or ‘I’m cheap’ whereby the salesperson was hence remunerated or subsidised via selling products, churning products, churning portfolios, pretending to be the greatest analyst / fortune teller or accumulating ‘funds under management’.

We aim to do three things for you and your family;

1. Understand what is important to you and put in place strategies to maximise the probability of you achieving this

2. With your team of advisers, get your financial house in order and keep it that way … forever!

3. Maintain a level of communication that meets your needs

We have a very clear proven long term investment philosophy based around quality low cost diversified Australian and international investments, that provide a stable and growing tax effective passive income stream with long term capital growth to exceed the erosive impact of inflation i.e. we look to grow your real wealth. That’s the ying … the yang is that we need to expect, embrace and take advantage of the inevitable short-term volatility that happens and is an obvious part and parcel of investing in very liquid equity markets. We should all welcome the dips … they provide great long term opportunities to significantly enhance your financial well-being.

At Fortitude, we personally use the same cash account providers, wholesale priced stockbrokers, administration service providers and core listed investments as you have in your recommended investment portfolios. As such, our alignment is with you. We invest in the same LIC’s, we know the management of these companies and enjoy with many of them very close working relationships, always at arm’s length and on a professional basis.

We like to keep things simple, provide mutual accountability and be available as a sounding board when needed.

Thanks you for choosing us as your financial partner. If you have family or friends that are in need of our services, we’d be honoured and delighted to talk with them.

I welcome any comments, thoughts or questions.