It may not always be obvious to clients what goes on behind the scenes here at FMB. How do we make the decisions on a day to day basis about the best places for clients to put their hard earned wealth? We would always maintain that the most important part of our process is the PLAN. The bit that is completely personal to you. Which decisions you should make and when you should make them. That is the backbone of a great financial plan, but because under the mattress is not an option we must find the best place to put your money.

This part is not bespoke to you, in fact it is a carefully chosen CONSISTENT approach which ensures we manage risk and avoid emotional decisions for you. We are independent so we choose from the whole of the market, we are tied to no one and we can change our minds when we decide things aren't right for our clients.

What, you might ask, has this got to do with last week's sale of Standard Life Aberdeen to Phoenix Life?

The answer is, more than you might realise. Because we have been advising clients for over 30 years we have an enormous legacy of investments under our wing. As soon as we heard the news we were looking to see if any of our clients had any financial products with Standard Life so that we could review them. Why? I'll leave Abraham Okusanya to explain...

Some of you may have met Abraham Okusanya here at the FMB offices. Abraham and his company Finalytiq help us manage the research and due diligence for our fund panel.

He has written this blog about how clients might be affected by the changes.

We don't just react when things change, we are also proactive about reviewing products and companies. At the moment we are doing a full scale review of the platforms/wraps* that we use as there has been a lot of consolidation in the sector and new technology to consider.

You can rest assured behind the scenes we are working hard to make sure your money is in the best possible place.

*Wikipedia- what is a wrap?