A Financial Planning firm has struck a deal to work with a multi-manager DFM business.
FiveWays Financial Planning, based in Somerset, is entering into a ‘strategic partnership’ with Wellian Investment Solutions, which is part of Harwood Capital.

Wellian will build a range of bespoke managed portfolios for FiveWays clients investing in a full suite of collective investments. One set of portfolios is already operational on the Nucleus wrap.
The portfolios will be under the stewardship of Wellian’s chief investment officer Richard Philbin and investment director Chris Mayo.

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Chris Gilchrist, director of FiveWays, said: “Many people talk about outsourcing to investment managers. We much prefer the insourcing approach of Wellian as it allows us to work with their people, philosophy and process as genuine partners and ensure that the portfolios align fully with our risk and suitability assessment process. In a world where we are accountable to our clients we need to demonstrate that we are an integral part of the investment process.”

FiveWays, which was established in 2012, has seven advisers and two Paraplanners in its team of 14 and £140m in assets under advice, much of it on Standard Life and Nucleus wraps.
Alan Durrant, chief executive of Wellian, said: “We are thrilled to be entering into partnership with FiveWays. I have known two of the directors, Chris Gilchrist and Steve Poland for many years and always liked their approach.

“They have a real interest in the investment process and were looking for a new type of investment approach that would allow them to get close to how we manage money.

Mr Durrant, a former investment director of Hargreaves Lansdown, said: “We have spent many hours with the FiveWays team fine tuning the portfolios utilising our proprietary SEMAFOUR and PORTCULIS quantitative processes.”

“We expect many more advisers to switch to the insourced model to provide them with a far more robust audit trail and also a deeper understanding of what is happening in portfolios, which can then be shared with clients to demonstrate added-value.”