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My background has primarily been within assisting individuals and expatriates to look at their offshore portfolios, let me give an example: When South Africans are looking at how do they take money abroad, effectively manage it, use it for retirement planning, diversification etc. What it seemed to be quite as complicated process, we've been able to make it quite simple and easy.

I've got clients that also reside in countries like the US. So, they might be individuals that have taken contracts they've looked to formally immigrate there, but now there are new challenges - they've got 2 balance sheets in two different countries. People are becoming global citizens, so being able to be at the forefront of this changing world has been quite an interesting area for me.

Individuals are going around the world taking opportunities on this global base and what happens is they actually end up needing to do localised planning. So, if they are in Dubai they're ending Dollars, their money is getting paid in to Dubai, so where do they look at opportunities for investment. You’ve got to be able to look at that jurisdiction. At the same time, they've got potential assets here or maybe in the UK. So, how do we take a collective balance sheet, understanding that you've got different country restrictions, jurisdiction restrictions, but ultimately being able to effectively guide them wherever they might go.

For us here at 1.618 - the international side, it's about being able to advise the client. We are regulators allowed to do so. That’s Continuous Professional Development. It's about having the right education, even our team looks at having the Chartered Institute for Securities and Investments Qualifications, which is a UK recognised qualification. Allowing them to be portable and at the same time building up a great client base across the world.

So, one of the most critical areas is looking at value proposition. The value proposition goes across the 1.618 Financial Advisory South Africa opportunity. You've got the 1.618 UK Advisory, which focuses on ‘how do we assist individuals, primarily on insurance side in the UK, with the investment permissions’, particularly only around discretionary investments. And then comes the 1.618 International US arm, which we do through a juristic relationship. An SEC registered company that we are able to work with and advise on our client base.

Ultimately my jigsaw, or puzzle piece is about how do we look at international strategies? How do we look at an incredible client base - just in the South African business alone? And how do we provide those opportunities of ‘international product’ to those clients? Looking at it not only from investment, structural tax, recommendations etc. But ultimately looking at it from their perspective. How do they then manage those investments? Which is the second arm that I supporting as the head of investments for Fibonacci Asset Management, which is our internal asset management company. It's a Category 2 licensed investment arm, which means that we do have discretion over the investments, but it was particularly built as an investment manager to our Group. So being able to give the clients the ability to have fundamental research and market analytics from top companies so that we can guide our clients in an ever changing world.

Ian Edwards – MD 1.618 International

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