Firstly, welcome to our first blog post of which we hope to have many in the months and years to come. Welcome similarly to 2017, and after the tumultuous year that was 2016 (and I guess Jan 2017), we hope that this would be a year where as a country we go forward, as clients you are able to embrace the season that you find yourselves in and that in that journey, we would be able to assist you in your financial wellbeing.
In the course of this blog post
We would like to cover topics that we are seeing in the marketplace, questions we may be receiving from our client base or the wider community and also share ideas that we feel may assist you. We may direct you to articles or videos that we feel pertinent but this said we are always open to ideas and conversation pointers!
On the home front
In the last year or so we have had a few changes to our office and team. As most of you are aware we have settled into our new offices in The Regent, Sea Point. We look forward to sharing a cup of coffee with you and enjoying what we feel is one of the best views in Cape Town.
Our Team
I would like to also introduce you to the fuller GDA team as you may only know the people you deal with directly. I thought it may be reassuring for you to know that there is a wider team supporting our advisory and implementation process.
We started the business in 1990 and were soon joined by Peter Hitchcock and Sue Sellick (1991), Priscilla Klein (1996), Jacques Braamse (2006) and more recently Jonathan Miller (2013). Jonathan is a CA and has become a shareholder in GDA over the last few years and as such you may be seeing a bit more of him. As a team, we have over 100 years of professional experience in the financial world and it is a privilege to work with each one. Annette Palser (based in our new Fish Hoek satellite office), Carol Hofmann, Lesley McGeough and Frans Yolelo provide the backbone of the business in assisting all of us in the ever growing administration and compliance of the financial industry.
During the last year or so we also spent some time rebranding our business to GDA with the tagline Guide, Discern, Act. In essence, we feel that as a group of people and a business, that is what we are able to assist you with:
Guide
We help guide clients through some of the financial and life decisions they face with an independent professional long term view.
Discern
With so much noise, risk and jargon in the financial world we help clients distil and discern what is relevant to their own financial and life path.
Act
This is where many of us fail in taking our intentions to actions. We assist clients in acting on their decisions and plans.
Tax Year End
We are quickly approaching the Feb tax year end. For those of us still building our wealth, it is an excellent time to review our Retirement Annuity and Tax-Free Saving Investment contributions. With increased RA deductions allowances from SARS (now 27,5% from 15%), this offers a great opportunity for investors to receive a substantial tax deduction whilst investing for the future.
As we settle into this year we look forward to meeting or hearing from you and wish you the best for 2017.
P.S. In our next blog post we will spend some time talking through yesterdays Budget Speech, it’s ramifications, as well as our model portfolios that we have designed and worked on with 2IP. We are extremely happy with the outcome of these portfolios and the benefits they have already had for investors.