Investors want more advice
By Wouter Klijn
Fri 21 May 2010

The level of fees is not top of mind when selecting an adviser, wealthy investors say.

Fees and costs rank low on the priority list of high net worth (HNW) investors when selecting a financial planner, a new survey has found.

When these investors were asked to name the top three aspects they were looking for in their financial adviser, they named honesty, expertise and integrity as the most important qualities, the survey by Investment Trends has found.

Less than 10 per cent of the more than 1600 respondents named fees and costs as a key issue, the survey found.

This made it the least named category in the survey after "a detailed knowledge of the law".

But Investment Trends principal Mark Johnston said the findings did not mean HNW investors find fees and costs unimportant.

"Remember, this information is really about prioritising things if you were choosing an adviser, so you could argue that all of these things are important, but they had to choose the most important issues," Johnston said.

Johnston argued that HNW investors are more concerned about the services they get in return for the fees they pay.

"We always see a little more emphasis on costs in a negative return environment. But all the analysis says it is far more about value than cost," Johnston said.

Centric Wealth chairman Philip Kelly supported Johnston's view.

"The top few things are the threshold issues - you are just not going to use a planner that is not honest, or has no expertise or integrity," Kelly said.

The survey, which was sponsored by Centric Wealth, surveyed investors with $1 million or more in investable assets outside their home.

Around half of the respondents said they would like additional advice on a wide range of issues, including estate planning, tax strategies and portfolio reviews, while the overall satisfaction with advice they had received had increased in 2009 compared to the year before.