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Every review should be approached in stages. I think at least it allows for a good process and easy understanding, especially where you have a client that's not as investment inclined as the advisor, it's good to keep it nice and simple and follow a few steps. First and foremost, we often refer to an annual review. If you're a client with a brand new portfolio or you change advisor, or there's been a big addition to your portfolio, it's perhaps better to do a very basic review or just to catch up every three to six months in the first year or two just to ensure that we have that good basis going and everyone's still on board and the strategy actually fits.

Key components to more of an annual review is to start with what's going on in the world. What are we seeing out there? What's the economy being like in SA? What's just been abroad? And obviously, what does this mean for our specific investment? Whether we were locally invested, offshore invested? Were we short-term invested? Are we looking at a longer term? That sort of detail becomes quite important to know…this is what could have an influence on our money and obviously the term it has linked to that.

Secondly is also to ensure that we establish a good benchmark. What are we actually measuring our money against? There's no use in using a bank interest rate to measure against retirement annuity. The platforms are completely different and the timing is completely different. That's another very important component for us to keep into consideration.

And then Obviously, we need to look at what did the fund actually do? What did the investment vehicle grow to and why? Then taking all the previous components we've discussed into consideration to get an idea of are we ahead of the curve or not? And if we're not ahead of the curve, then we can understand why. And with that also, how can we improve or how can we change on what it is that we're doing? It is also very imperative to focus on one or two key topics once we've established what the status of the investment is compared to what it is that we are benchmarking it against, and that would be fee management and also do we stick to our strategy or do we change the strategy?

If something changed so significantly in the world or in our approach to the investment, be that from a client perspective or the advisor perspective, that we actually need to make a significant change. So, in that regard, that can be one of many things. We look at, are our funds performing? Is the combination of our funds suited to where we are? Was there a significant change in the client's life? Pushing us to say, you know what, perhaps we need to be a little bit more aggressive. We are comfortable with the capital we've built up. Let's perform two or 3%, are we happy to shift into a different fund category.

Or the converse is also an important discussion. We've underperformed a bit to what we would like to, or what the general average was that we are comparing ourselves to. Perhaps let's make a switch there. We might want to be a little bit more conservative in the approach, or something we often hear - and this happened to us now recently - we're have unexpected twins coming our way and we're going to need to stash a bit of money. So perhaps our 5-10 year outlook needs to shift to something that's more like 18months-2 years, because we're going to have a big chunk of the investment being allocated to items that need to be addressed on a shorter term basis.

Then the review should also furnish or happen around how do we manage that? How do we change the current strategy to fit the interim one? And then, as we've spoken about many a time, and probably the big question we get asked the most is fee management. • How do we ensure that this investment of ours performs accurately and appropriately based on what we are actually paying for it?

Now, as many of our colleagues have said, it's also something you can find online and all the various platforms. Cut out all the advertising nonsense. There's a lot of that out there. You can find it anywhere. With AI these days, you can find whatever you want to find. And with a lot of that, we found big marketing on “We have the lowest fees in the world” or “in SA” or “for this specific vehicle”. Now that is absolutely fantastic if the fee justifies the return.

It's no use in us saying I'm paying X percentage, but I'm underperforming in a market environment by 2% or 3%. Then rather pay 1% more but actually get 2% to 3% to 4% better net result. So, the converse is also true. Please ensure that you get what you pay for. It's no use to have an exorbitant fee for something that is not performing to justify that fee - and also have clarity about what goes where? who's paying what and what actually has an influence on your investment? Those are crucial discussions and also crucial points to review on an ongoing basis. Is my fee still justifying the return we are getting? Or can we do better for the same cost platform? Can we do it a little bit cheaper? What is available and does that fit into our framework? Very important points when we discuss these sort of things.

It remains very important And I advocate this, and we also advocate it from a company point of view. You get what you pay for! And be careful to overpay and be careful to underpay. Ensure that it is justified and it is balanced, and your net result really pushes that envelope for you. That is what we're effectively chasing.

Willem Verhoef - 1.618 Executive Financial Advisor (Blueberry)