A trio of former First Wealth financial planners have decided to set up their own advice firm – Finova Money – which will focus on serving the next generation of clients.
Co-founders Scott Millar, Rob Schwarz and Rob Bell (pictured left to right) told Money Marketing the business is due to launch next week and will be part of the Sense Network.
“We’ve been on a pretty steep learning curve of how to run a business and start a business from scratch,” said Schwartz.
“We recently received authorisation from the network, so we’ve been given the green light to start advising clients.
“Now we’re just waiting for the final amends on the website and other bits and bobs before we can get the word out there.”
Finova Money will split clients into three core groups.
“We’ve got our digital offering,” Bell said. “This is going to be called ‘tier one’ and is for people starting out on their financial journeys.
“They probably don’t have many assets, so the typical AUM [assets under management] percentage fee model isn’t going to work for them, but there is value that can be added.”
Prices for ‘tier one’ start at £100 per month, plus 0.25% per year of any assets the advisers manage.
‘Tier two’ will be the firm’s core offering, making up the majority of its clients. This will start from £300 per month.
“The way we’re trying to differentiate ourselves is that it’s then on a sliding scale.,” said Bell. “The basic rate is for a straightforward setup, where AUM doesn’t really matter.
“As it gets more complicated, for example, if the client is introducing businesses, trusts or tax planning, we start to then just dial up the charge a little bit on a monthly basis.
“So the client is paying for exactly what they need. We’re not charging them based on how successful they’ve been at saving previously. We’ve tried to really make it as fair as we can.”
‘Tier three’ is a family office type offering, which starts from £2,500 a month. “This is where we will offer more comprehensive estate planning and business planning,” Bell added.
“We will bring in external specialists as well, be that in tax or law. We will really try to offer them a whole service, with intergenerational planning as well.”
Commenting on the planned business model, Schwartz said: “There will be old-school advisers who challenge us on this.
“They’ll go: ‘You guys are leaving so much cash on the table by going for this fixed fee. You’ve probably got something like £20m that you’re dealing with, you could be earning £200,000 a year from on a 1% model, and you’re only charging them £25,000 a year for their complex needs.’
“But it’s what we believe in.”
The three co-founders met while working together at First Wealth and had been talking about branching out on their own for the past couple of years.
Schwartz started working for First Wealth in 2017, while Millar and Bell joined in 2018. All three left the business in May 2023 to set up Finova Money.
“Over the past year or so, we decided there were things we wanted to do better, in our opinion, for our clients,” said Schwarz.
“We’ve been talking about working for ourselves and doing it the way we want to do it for probably the past two years. We decided that now is the right time to do our own thing, and that’s what started us on this journey.”
Millar said: “Where we’ve really tried to take a step into a more modern approach is the way we’re offering our services.”
“We fundamentally believe in financial planning,” he added. “Start with what the client needs, what they want, their aspirations and goals, objectives for the future.
“Then we start working backwards from there to make sure their financial plan fits, to get them to where they want to be.”
Why Finova Money?
“As a new firm, which is young, innovative, trying to do things a little bit differently and separate ourselves from the old guard, we didn’t want to call ourselves something like ‘Rob, Rob and Scott Wealth Management’,” said Schwartz.
“What we wanted was something that was just a little bit different and snappy.
“Scott often talks about this dial – on one side you’ve got traditional wealth management. And on the other end you’ve got FinTech businesses.
“Where we want it to be was tilted somewhere in the middle, slightly towards FinTech, so that it’s got a bit more of a younger feel. So that’s where we got ‘fin’.
“Inova’ is just a shortening of ‘innovation’. A ‘nova’, as well, is an explosion which sparks a new start. We’ve got energy, we’re about to explode onto the scene.
“Then we put ‘Money’ at the end because we wanted to make it clear what we do. And that wasn’t wealth management, because that isn’t associated with the types of clients that we work with.
“They associate themselves more with newer money, it’s not like they’ve got old generational wealth.”
