CASE STUDY

JohnMacDougall

Why do you prefer to manage your own investments rather than take advice?

I have not found anyone who I would trust to advise on my investments in recent years and previous advisers have charged heavily for poor or no advice. Many wish to manage my investments for me and I am not currently prepared to trust them to do this or to pay their fees for doing so. My IFA purely gives me advice on taxation and legislation and I pay him a flat fee for doing so.

Please tell us about yourself?

Retired restaurant and bar owner who has been running a referral marketing business for the last 18 years. I am in a Civil Partnership with no dependants. My main home is in North

John MacDougall

London and I have a second home in Bangkok, Thailand. I enjoy travel and people.

Please tell us about your financial goals and aspirations?

I have 7 investment properties in London and would like to bring that up to 10 while reducing my leverage. I currently have about £440k in stock based investments and would like to double that in the next 5 years. Long term I would like to have £15m in joint net assets with my partner before I die and we are getting close to £5m so far.

Please detail any negative experiences you may have had as an investor?

I put £100k with a friend of a friend and he built that to £500k on paper before he got arrested. He is now serving 14.5 years

“I LIKED THE IDEA THAT IT SHORTLISTED ALL THE THOUSANDS OF FUNDS AVAILABLE. IT SAVED ME

A REALLY BIG HEADACHE!”

for fraud (‘Google’ Kautilya Nandan Pruthi). However I did recover my initial investment so I should not be too upset.

Before subscribing to our data service how did you make fund choices?

By using the tools and reports on Trustnet and Citywire.

How happy were you with portfolio growth before subscribing to Yodelar?

Happy until Brexit when I realised I had put all my eggs in one basket and was unsure what to do since my investment strategy for trusts and funds was in tatters.

“YODELAR MADE IT MUCH SIMPLER FOR ME TO IDENTIFY SUITABLE FUNDS TO SWITCH TO”

What were your main concerns about managing your investment portfolio?

I knew I had a lot to learn but the ‘experts’ I was paying did not know much more than me.

What first attracted you to Yodelar?

It was mentioned on the Citywire Forums that they provided an independent portfolio review service.

What was your initial opinion of Yodelar?

I liked the idea that is shortlisted all the thousands of funds available. It saved me a really big headache!

How do you feel you have benefited from our portfolio review?

It pointed out to me that I was holding funds that had done well over the 3 and 5 years but very badly since Brexit and were unlikely to improve that quickly, if at all and forced me to take my emotions out of my decisions and make some hard choices.

How do you feel you have benefited from our investment data service?

Yodelar made it much simpler for me to identify suitable funds to switch to.

How has Yodelar changed your view on investing?

It has given me confidence that I have a strategy going forward. With a couple of exceptions, if it is not a good performer over 1, 3 and 5 years I will sell the fund and choose another one.

What made you purchase our data service?

I thought it could be a good investment and much cheaper that paying for someone to manage my investments.

What would you say to anyone who was considering our data service?

If you are managing your own portfolio you should definitelygive it a try.t a

“IF YOU ARE MANAGING YOUR OWN PORTFOLIO YOU SHOULD

DEFINITELY GIVE IT A TRY”

Is there a service you would like Yodelar to provide that is not currently on offer?

It would be great if the reports were online and continually updated so you could access up to date reports at any time.

Whether you manage your own investments or your portfolio is managed by a financial adviser, we recommend you utilise our independent portfolio review service. Our team of data experts will analyse the performance and ranking of each fund you are invested in as well as provide an overall growth analysis, comparing your portfolio’s growth to that of similar risk top performing model portfolios. For more information, visit www.yodelar.com/portfolio-review.