“Mike Bates was recommended to my wife and I by a friend for financial advice when we retired from 35 years of teaching last year. All communication with Mike has showed how knowledgeable, supportive, sensitive and discreet he is.
Mike is a good listener and an effective communicator enabling us to understand financial principles. His financial report was thorough and comprehensive with personal recommendations over the short and long term.
We are extremely happy to endorse Mike Bates as a financial advisor and look forward to continuing to work with with.”
“I wanted to take the time to thank you for the service and support you have provided to me and the rest of Health Matters.
I sincerely appreciate your help and advice Balpreet, and it is great to see that you are available to us to handle challenging issues (even when you are on annual leave). As you know I too was on annual leave, and it could have been very frustrating for me to get this issue sorted, however, you went above and beyond to help and support me with this urgent matter, which was greatly appreciated, hence my note of thanks.
Your work is excellent and is always delivered with great care and professionalism, which demonstrates that we are sincerely being looked after by you and your team at Integrity Wealth Solutions.
You always make yourself available to talk things through with me, as sometimes, I don’t always understand the pensions regulations or processes. This is reassuring for me, Balpreet.
My work would be very frustrating if you hadn’t been available to guide me through these challenges, and you are and have been, an amazing support to me - Please share with your manager so they can see for themselves what a difference you are making to their business, and us at Health Matters.”
“We feel very lucky to have been put in touch with Mike Bates and his team at Integrity Wealth Solutions a few years ago.
Since enlisting their services, IWS have given us first class financial advice and have helped us to make some life changing decisions which are already benefitting our family’s quality of life on a daily basis. My husband now has a plan to retire early and we feel that we have a degree of confidence in how we shall be able to help our children through Uni and onto the housing ladder. At all times we have had the utmost confidence in Mike Bates’ knowledge and experience, ensuring at all times that we are making the best financial decisions for our family for both the long and short term. Finally following the inevitable economic impact of the pandemic on all investments, we are relieved to be already seeing our funds with the Prudential bounce back to their pre Covid levels-whilst we are aware that many of our friends have been less fortunate. We can therefore fully recommend IWS for their financial services. My personal thanks again to you Mike and your team.”
“I have dealt with Martin Lindsey and his team for the past ten years. I have always found them approachable and friendly. In these uncertain times the investment programmes have been tailored to suit my needs.
I feel I can always pick up the phone to contact Martin’s team with any questions or queries I may have. I would recommend Integrity Wealth Solutions. ”
“I was recommended to Mike by my accountant, and he has been advising me for over three years now.
Mike is a trained and experienced independent financial adviser/planner who works full-time in this field. I am a money blogger and obviously have a special interest in financial matters, but I have no professional training or direct work experience in this field. I can ask Mike for his professional opinion on any investment-related matters, and while I am not obliged to follow his advice I do of course take it very seriously.
To read the client’s full blog please follow the link below.”
“I have known Mike Bates personally and professionally for almost 20 years.
Originally I was recommended to Mike for advice on my own affairs, investments, protection, pensions and so on.
I’m an accountant with a client base of around 250, not only has Mike advised myself and my family, I have felt the confidence to recommend Mike to many, many clients, this is not something one does lightly.
So, yes, if you are looking for professional financial advice I would not hesitate to suggest contact Mike Bates.”
“I am a relatively recent addition to Tom‘s clients, having initially spoken to him in February 2019 when looking for a financial advisor to help me manage my retirement portfolio.
In early 2019, JLR, where I had worked for 30+ years, announced a significant VR package. In addition its pension schemes, for the first time, provided an online live visibility of transfer values. The result was that I decided to seek independent advice.
Why IWS?
I initially considered a number of other options, a short-list including Oakland’s Wealth (Sutton Coldfield), Hargreaves-Lansdown, Jardine Lloyd Thompson (JLT) (and of course remaining within LR DB scheme). These were exclusively based on recommendations from work colleagues, including one former LR pension trustee. All of these colleagues had been through the process of transferring from a DB scheme to a managed portfolio in the past 3 years and were currently with one of the above advisors.
However when meeting with Tom I was singularly impressed with his knowledge and enthusiasm, a positivity coupled with focus on what It was that I wanted. At no time during the initial conversations with Tom did I feel this was about what IWS could get from me but all about what they could do for me. This feeling was not replicated in my contact with others.
A significant level of due diligence was performed by Tom / IWS to ensure that leaving a generous DB scheme with JLR was right for me. A number of discussions / meetings to determine the suitability of moving and a fully detailed review of my needs / aspirations vs what the DB scheme was offering. This further reinforced my feeling that IWS remained my advisor(s) of choice.
Note: Sometimes decisions can be influenced by relatively minor things, and whilst hardly the most important elements in my decision to join Tom, Martin and the IWS family, there were two other things I considered.....
a) the location of the business near my home, meaning increased convenience, and
b) I wanted to find someone, a single advisor , from whom I felt I would be able to discuss my retirement plans for the next 20+ years.....
How has Tom helped achieve goals to date?
After only a year, and what a year, it is difficult to determine whether goals have been achieved. However on reflection I believe the following.....
- Despite significant market disruption since March, the choices made in allocating my portfolio have resulted in outperforming the general market trend. This has given me increasing confidence in the decisions made with Tom at the outset.
- I have improved Peace of mind. Tom’s positive approach, explaining performance within the wider context, strongly helps with the belief that my retirement will continue to be well-funded.
Level of service
My interaction with Tom during the last 12+ months has been quite significant and I am extremely happy with the support I have received to date.
A few, maybe repetitive, bullet points of my observations. Tom:
- Demonstrates a high level of competence.
- Goes the extra mile,
- Makes it feel personal, like I’m his most important client,
- Wants to help deliver the best (for me) via a realistic and safely funded retirement ,
- Always makes time at my convenience,
- Candid / Honest conversations leading to high levels of trust,
- Keeps me informed of all matters,
- Will revisit my changing updates / requirements, however numerous,
- Patient, charming, enthusiastic,
- Willing to integrate new thoughts / wishes into retirement planning but also providing the voice of reason as needed. e.g. On at least 2 occasions I have raised the possibility of changing decisions agreed with Tom. The first being the initial transfer where just prior to moving the fund, and after agreeing a value, I noted the value had increased by £32k and wanted to restart the process. The other was at my first annual review in May where I inquired about a potential short term change to investment philosophy, in essence to take advantage of the recovery in markets which was “likely” to be sizeable in the next 12 months. In each case I received sound well-considered advice which I followed.
Would I recommend IWS and Tom?
Yes
I recently introduced/ recommended IWS to a former colleague in the same position I was in 12 months ago. He is currently going through the introduction / due diligence process with Tom.
In addition a family member of mine ( also former JLR) is seriously considering moving his portfolio to IWS after initially using another company. We have discussed my views on the relationship formed with Tom and IWS and there are preliminary discussions taking place between him and Martin.”