Case Study #1
Margaret
Objective: Growth plus income, Socially Responsible Investing
Margaret is formerly divorced and has been remarried for the past 10 years. Her children are grown and her new husband affords her to have a comfortable lifestyle. However, Margaret has always been independent and likes to have her own spending money. She wants to donate to her favorite charities and gives gifts to her children. She is also environmentally conscientious and wants to support companies that also share this value. Her portfolio is specifically designed for her to receive a monthly stream of income, growth so that her money can last her long enough to keep up with inflation, and some investments that are directly tied to alternative energy and cleaner fuels.
Case Study #2
Jon and Becky
Objective: Diversification and Long term growth
Jon and Becky have judiciously saved money to be prepared for important life events. They had enough money saved to pay all of their children’s college education and always maintained an emergency fund of six month’s expenses. Both Jon and Becky work. They consistently invested in the stock market and real estate. After 20 years of investing, they had accumulated a significant amount of wealth. Their strategy was to use the real estate for income generation and the stock market for growth. Every time they had money to put away they bought a mutual fund. They chose the invest ments themselves and over the years had accumulated 37 mutual funds. They thought that by buying different funds they were diversifying their portfolio. The dotcom bubble in the late 90’s really shook their portfolio and they decided that with the size of the money they had amassed it was time to seek professional help. In addition, they recently started their own business and no longer had the time to research investments.
Meeting with Jon and Becky helped them to establish some long term goals. There plans for retirement were a long ways off and they still wanted their money to grow. They wanted the option for income for times when the business may not be doing as well. When I thoroughly researched the individual holdings of their mutual funds, it was quite clear that there was a lot of duplication. Jon and Becky thought they were diversifying when in fact; they were concentrating their investments even further. We decided to hold onto the real estate for an inflation hedge and income.
Working with CAIM, Jon and Becky now have more transparency and flexibility with their investments. Working with a portfolio manager they trust has helped to educate them and properly align their investments to meet their future needs. They feel secure in knowing that they have an experienced portfolio manager working with them who has the ability to adjust the portfolio at any given time to meet their needs. Now, Becky and Jon have the peace of mind to solely concentrate on growing their new business.