FCA Approved and Regulated

The firm is fully approved and regulated by the UK’s financial regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority. You can confirm this by going to www.fca.org and searching for ‘London Stone Securities’. You will see our FCA registration number 479827.

You will also see the firm’s telephone number 020 3697 1700. Calling this number and speaking to the firm is the official method to verify that the firm is genuinely regulated and not a clone.

Custodian

We never hold any of your shares, funds or cash which means that if even anything happens to us, your portfolio is 100% safe.

We use a firm called Jarvis Investment Management (JIM), which is one of the UK’s largest custodians, responsible for holding funds for many stockbrokers and wealth managers. JIM was founded in 1984 and is listed on the London Stock Exchange. It is a very established firm with a very long history (nearly 40 years) of protecting client assets which is the reason we chose to use them.

JIM Company Information

https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/01844601

JIM Audited Accounts

JIM is a profitable organisation. It offers an execution only service and therefore avoids the substantial risks of other financial firms. Most investors hold their portfolios with companies that actively invest their own capital; this increases their risk significantly. JIM, on the other hand, is simply a ‘holding’ institution. It does not trade and therefore does not have this trading risk.

https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/01844601/filing-history

JIM Share price

https://www.londonstockexchange.com/stock/JIM/jarvis-securities-plc/company-page

Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS)

In the highly unlikely event that something was to happen to JIM you are afforded the full protection under the FSCS, which is currently £85,000. In addition to this JIM also has its own independent professional indemnity liability insurance up to £2m which gives it further protection against risk.

Company Founded in 2008

London Stone Securities was founded in 2008 and during that time has helped thousands of investors. It is a profitable organisation and has had no regulatory issues with the FCA. It has a 100% clean record with the FCA with no fines or suspensions.

https://register.fca.org.uk/s/firm?id=001b000000MfrElAAJ

In the highly unlikely event that anything was to happen to us e.g., bankruptcy, there is no risk to you. Your portfolio would simply be managed on an execution only basis with JIM until you decide to transfer to another broker.  

As an FCA regulated firm we adhere to the principle of ‘removing barriers to entry’. This means that if for any reason you are unhappy with our service you can transfer out to any other firm. There are no exit penalties or clauses.

It’s a very simple process that takes about 2-3 weeks depending on the investments that you hold in your portfolio. Funds typically take longer than individual shares, and cash typically only takes a few days.

Online Access

You have 24-hour, full, online access to your portfolio via our portal. This gives you access to your portfolio including the valuation and statement. It also gives you numerous metrics including the average dividend yield of your stocks, the profit/loss of each position, the % of sector coverage and so on. It also gives you a full transactional history of buys and sells, and all payments in and out.

Contract Notes

As soon as any trade is executed (buy or sell) a contract note is automatically generated and emailed to you. This will show the stock that was bought (or sold), the price at which it was executed, the date and time of execution, and the commission paid.

Trade Emails

Whenever a trade is executed, and in addition to the contract note you will receive a ‘trade email’ from our research team. This will explain the rationale behind the transaction i.e., why was a stock bought or sold, the profit/loss, and the chart of the stock.

Statements and Valuations

In addition to the above we also send a full statement of account and valuation twice a year, on the 1^st July and 1^st January. This allows you to assess the performance and make the necessary tweaks if necessary. It also gives you the confidence to add more funds to your portfolio if the performance is above its agreed targets.

By restricting the people who can use our services through our minimum portfolio size requirements, we are able to spend more time on those clients that we do serve. This means that you can book a telephone/Zoom call with your advisor during any one of several 15-minute appointment slots throughout the week. If you prefer you can come in for a face-to-face meeting at our City of London offices (opposite the Bank of England).

We strive to offer the best in personal service and if you are already speaking to one of our team, then hopefully this is something that you have already seen.

Boutique Investment Firm

London Stone is a boutique, independent wealth management firm. Compared to larger organisations such as St James Place and Hargreaves Lansdowne we work exclusively with a smaller number of clients, typically several hundred. We provide a higher level of personal service with high net-worth investors. The minimum portfolio size to work with us is £100,000 and above.

Company Director/Founder

Ranjeet Singh, is more than just the CEO of London Stone Securities. He is actively involved in the management of portfolios, particularly for dealing accounts above £1m. As a client of London Stone, you will always be heard; you’re just a telephone call away from the business owner himself.

By allowing direct contact with the firm’s owner, we have been able to remove a potential conflict of interest that might otherwise exist between an advisor and client. This allows a genuine, long-term relationship to be forged where your interests and the firm’s interests are aligned.

We offer a competitive commission structure which is very easy to follow. There are two fees.

1. Annual Management Charge (AMC)

Year 1 : 2% of the fund value
Year 2+  : 1% of the fund value

The Annual Management charge covers the firm’s day to day running costs. This allows the firm to provide the custodial services, online platform, research and analysis, and the administration of all accounts.

2. Commission

Buy and Sell  : 1% of the transaction value (min. £100)

A transactional fee is whenever we see an opportunity to buy or sell something. Most of the larger fund managers levy a larger, annual management charge and no transactional fee. The problem with this approach is that it discourages looking for opportunities in the marketplace. The fund manager is not financially rewarded for being ‘active’ and therefore you are likely to see fewer transactions.

In contrast we want to incentivise our advisors to look for opportunities on behalf of our clients and with our commission structure that becomes possible. There are countless trading ideas every single day and it’s our job to find them for you. You don’t have to trade every day, or every week or even every month, but you do deserve to have access to the profitable trades that so many other investors are taking advantage of.

It’s our job to grow your share portfolio because that’s in both of our interests. Therefore, we do everything possible to ensure that your portfolio is tax efficient. This includes investing within a SIPP, Stock ISA, joint account and we even offer the opportunity to trade through corporate structures including limited accounts.

We’ll work with you to ensure that your portfolio is built in a way which allows you to keep the maximum amount of of the income and capital growth. We can also guide you through other more complex tax including pension transfers and inheritance tax. We don’t offer tax advice, but we work closely with tax specialists who can help you.

We don’t deal in any high-risk investments such as CFDs, spread betting or options. We focus on the main market which is home to the blue-chip companies. This means that our research and analysis is specifically targeting businesses which pay dividends to its shareholders and which are substantially lower risk than other areas of the market.

Our clients don’t want to take silly risks and one of their goals is wealth preservation. The stock market can be unpredictable which is why building a sensibly managed portfolio without taking excessive, unnecessary risk, is always our starting point.

This is the goal for every investor and it’s what ultimately determines how successful we are as your investment manager. As a boutique investment firm, we don’t invest heavily in marketing or branding which means that much of our business is through an existing database of investors who we have built relationships with over a number of years.

As with all independent, boutique investment we spend a disproportionate amount of capital on client acquisition. It also means that we have to work incredibly hard to ensure that our clients stay with us. That means we have to deliver.

We take pride in building share portfolios from scratch. This means that no two portfolios are the same. This allows us to tailor make investment strategies specific to the needs of each individual client. It’s a lot more work but it’s worth it because our clients have a portfolio which is built just for them. It matches their investment objectives, circumstances, and appetite for risk more closely than a generic fund could. It also gives the portfolio  an opportunity to perform better.

Past performance can’t be relied upon for future success, but it is nonetheless an indicator that clients want to know. We publish our performance numbers on the restricted, members-only part of our website which you can sign up to for free.

Please remember that the numbers specifically refer to the ‘closed’ trades, i.e., the transactions that have been bought and sold, i.e., crystallised profit/losses.

https://www.londonstonesecurities.co.uk/members-centre

One of the benefits of building a bespoke portfolio is that it can be changed very easily. We often change portfolios as our clients go through different stages of their life. For example, when a client changes their job, or moves into retirement, or perhaps when they want to help their child buy a property. Changes in circumstances often means a change in investment objectives and appetite for risk. With our fluid portfolios we can implement adjustments very quickly, and typically within a few days.

We also have the benefit of being able to adapt to changing market conditions. Unlike generic funds which are less agile, we can quickly reposition client portfolios to avoid risk and to capitalise on where the best opportunities might be. We can pivot from one company or sector to another as market conditions change.

We do all of the work for you. That’s what you’re paying us for. That means we do all of the research and stock analysis for you. Once we understand what you’re looking for our team of analysts and traders work tirelessly to find those opportunities which exhibit the greatest price-value discrepancy. We even execute the trades using our platform so that you really don’t have to do anything at all.

In fact, the only thing you have to do is to log in to your account once every few months or read your statements to make sure you’re happy with how things are going.

If there is something important that we need to discuss, we will let you know.

We take care of all of the administration so that you don’t have to. Everything is online which makes it much easier but if you prefer hard copies in the post, that can be arranged too.

Our team provides a one-stop shop for all of your financial investment needs. That means that we take care of statements, valuations, contract notes, payments. We even take care of your tax returns analysis at the end of the year. This means that you receive a detailed profit and loss spreadsheet showing all of the capital gains and dividends for the year.

We also issue consolidated tax certificates which we can send straight to your accountant so that you don’t need to spend time and effort doing any calculations.

But that’s not all. Depending on your requirements we can even help you with dematerialising your paper share certificates, chasing up lost paperwork with the Share registrar, helping you transfer investments from one product to another, complete paperwork, fill in forms for new products, and even provide time-saving information via our webinars and training videos.

It’s all designed to take the work out of investing so you can spend time doing the things that you really want to.