The detail is in the drawdown.

Here’s another instalment in our spotlight series where we cast light on our clients and partners who share our passion for doing great things in the world of financial planning.

In this episode we’re featuring Paul Davidson from Strategic Vision Wealth Management based in Oxfordshire, a firm that he’s developed and led over the past 2 decades to become one of the region’s leading practices.

Parafinity have worked with Paul and the team at Strategic Vision Wealth Management (SVWM) for a number of years, during which time we’ve supported him as he has developed a unique approach to planning pension drawdown.

With an impressive, long standing client base over a number of decades, SVWM are now seeing many of their clients moving ever closer to realising their retirement ambitions. Whilst in the earlier years the focus has been on building wealth for the future, Paul and his team have been developing a number of approaches for clients contemplating imminent retirement. They are working to ensure all options available to clients  are meticulously considered and that the clients feel well prepared for the next phase in their lives.

An interesting approach to the process, Paul is passionate about getting to the nitty gritty, most notably a detailed expenditure understanding which is then mapped against a timeline to understand their needs in more detail.

His approach to managing future income is novel, looking ahead, beyond the next couple of years, to the clients goals and income needs over the next decade. By looking at this long term  timeline, Paul encourages his clients to do everything on their bucket list by offering them the reassurance that the income they need is in hand. Occasionally he has to reign in a client’s expectations about what they can do with their retirement, but this is few and far between.

Paul isn’t afraid to outsource some of the heavy lifting; he’s passionate about his service delivery and knows no-one can’t ‘do it all’.

Part of this process involves mapping out the structure of income across the range of the clients tax-wrappers to maximise tax efficiency over the long term, which is part of the service Parafinity offers to Paul. Through evaluation of their current plans and proposing a structured withdrawal strategy, clients of Strategic Vision coming up to retirement can have complete confidence in doing all they want with their golden years.

“Paul and Strategic Vision Wealth Management’s client dedicated team, have worked closely with Parafinity for a number of years to improve and perfect their award winning, ground breaking advice and service to their clients”

The plan sometimes combines structured return type investments alongside a growth portfolio so that clients are able to maximise returns using combinations of personal allowances alongside other non pension sources of income.

Paul says: “Whilst many focus on investment growth, it’s the detail surrounding the drawdown that can make the difference of a client achieving their financial goals in later life. The combination of growth plus detailed drawdown planning continues to maximise returns and often enable retirement earlier than they may think.“

Modelling a multitude of scenarios, Paul and his team are able to arrive at the most tax efficient income strategy. Despite the complexity involved, once arriving at this point, he’s pragmatic in his approach to make it easy for the client to understand – and manage their money. 

It’s not only what he’s doing with strategic drawdown that continues to impress his clients, but his relentless customer centric approach and passion about the client and the detail around them.. It’s this wraparound piece of detailed advice and approach that enables SVWM to provide a complete retirement package for their clients.

For more information visit www.svwm.co.uk