Work out what we would have cost you.
No email, no form, no result sent to you later. Move two figures and the answer is on the page. It works out a fee from numbers you supply, and it does not predict a return.
What would we have cost you?
Move the two figures. Everything else is subtraction. We take 10% of what your money gained and nothing at all if it did not.
- Your gain
- €20'000
- Our share, 10%
- €2'000
Nothing gained, so nothing to pay. The mark stays where it is, and the share starts again only above it.
The portfolio is below what went in, so there would be nothing to pay — and nothing to pay on the way back up either. A fall has to be recovered in full before the share applies again, so the same ground is never charged for twice.
Broker and platform costs are yours and are not in this figure, because they are not ours to take. Investing puts your capital at risk: this works out a fee, it does not predict a return.
Three ways an adviser can be paid
The third one- 01
A percentage of what you hold
The common arrangement. Typically charged every year on the whole portfolio, whether it made you anything or not. On a flat period you still pay; on a falling one you pay while losing.
- 02
A flat retainer
Predictable, and unconnected to whether the advice worked. You pay the same for a year of good calls and a year of bad ones.
- 03
A share of the gain
What we do. Nothing is charged unless the portfolio is worth more than it has ever been worth, and then only a tenth of the amount above that. A fall has to be recovered in full first, so the same ground is never charged for twice. The trade-off is ours: through a long flat stretch we earn nothing.
None of the three is universally right. What matters is that you know which one you are on before you commit, which is why MB Financial Advisory publishes 10% of the gain rather than inviting you in to discuss it.
The number is only half of it.
The other half is every term behind it: what is charged when it goes the other way, whether there is a hurdle, and the one term that runs in our favour.