At WDS, we pride ourselves on providing personalized service in support of investment counselling and portfolio management. Our business practices focus on clientele who have a minimum of $500,000 in investable financial assets, including a combination of registered and non-registered assets. This entails far more than just being at your service the way you’d expect when doing business with a locally based firm. Our personalized approach is designed to tailor an investment strategy that is right for you—for your goals and your needs.
Determining your needs and goals
Your relationship with WDS as a client begins with a clearly defined investment policy statement. Understanding your needs is central to everything we do. That is why our first step in working with you as a client is to undertake in-depth information gathering to develop a complete financial profile—one that provides clear facts about your current situation. Your specific objectives, income requirements, risk parameters, time horizon, liquidity needs and unique circumstances—all these are reviewed to determine an appropriate long-term strategy for your investment assets.
Building your portfolio
Investing depends upon the basic risk-reward relationship. Our aim is to achieve an attractive return over time while managing your risk using time-tested construction tools. We build properly diversified portfolios using different asset classes (cash, fixed income, income trusts, and equities). We provide market exposure by country, as well as covering different sectors of the economy. We limit the percentage of your portfolio’s assets invested in any single security. Last we reach our own investment decision after independent, bottom-up research and analysis of relevant information from a variety of third-party sources.
Maintaining your portfolio
Investing is a dynamic process because global markets are in a constant state of flux. Your portfolio is actively monitored, and periodically re-balanced to maintain the correct asset mix. We also track the progress of securities we invest in, reviewing brokerage research reports and corporate filings.
Reporting results
As a client, we provide you with a comprehensive portfolio evaluation report. This includes both market-value and book-value of securities, estimates of projected income, investing activity during the period and commentary on the investment climate. Total investment performance, net of fees, is calculated on an annual basis. Online access to your portfolio is also available. Also issued by your custodian are month-end statements for each account, statutory income tax slips and trading summaries after year-end. For tax purposes, you are provided with supplemental annual reports detailing deductible investment counsel/portfolio management fees, as well as realized capital gains/losses for the year.
Fees
Investment counsellors generally act independent of conflicts of interest as they are compensated based solely on fees, resulting in a more objective, transparent and professional service. At WDS, where appropriate, we invest in individual securities as opposed to traditional mutual or pooled funds. We do this because the tax-deductibility of the management fees might otherwise be lost, and because it helps avoid the hidden costs associated with other types of bundled investments that can consume a large part of your returns. Plus, all fees paid to WDS are tax-deductible for non-registered accounts.
Ongoing relationship
We strive to develop a strong, working alliance with you. As a client, you gain access to a WDS advisor who maintains close contact with you, who meets with you regularly, and who is available to talk when something important happens in your life or in the financial markets. Within WDS our portfolio managers work together. That means you gain the advantage of the investment team’s collective knowledge and perspective.
