As a buddy of mine recently said, I've spent 90% of my income of the last 60 years on wine, women and fast cars. The other 10% I've wasted.
On a more serious note, I've a close friend who I've known for many years who started an investment firm with another very smart and successful friend of his mid last year. I was one of the first to invest with them and I've been very happy with the returns, the service and importantly the transparency since. These guys put $5m each of their own money into it, so unlike most people giving financial advice or investment services, they actually have their own money at stake. It makes a hell of a difference, I reckon. There's plenty of people willing to charge for advice who aren't going to suffer any loss if what they recommend bombs. His advice over the years has not simply made me money, but saved me money. The best example being convincing me to convince my then fund manager to sell nearly all my shareholdings just before the market collapsed. Another more was walking me through getting my Dubai apartment hedged on the currency risk just before the AUD took off (thus far saving me $690k if I wanted to sell it and convert it back to my retirement/home currency). That's real money and genuinely good advice.
When you invest, you actually do so under your own/company name so your money is always and only available to you. They invest it using a limited power of attorney (they cant withdraw or deposit), and best of all there is absolutely no performance fees unless they make profits for you. You can also add or withdraw your funds whenever you like and see exactly where your funds are being invested, live!
The billions of dollars lost by people hoodwinked into investing in Bernard Madoff's pontzi scheme were all the more a surprise because his company was regulated by the US Securities and Exchange Commission and had been functioning for over 30 years. The lessons to be learnt from that are:
- Just because an organisation has been around for years doesn't necessarily mean it's legitimate
- Do your own due diligence, and if you do choose to abdicate your own investigation to someone else (eg. word of mouth) as many of us sometimes have to given so many of our waking hours are spent in the air, then mitigate some of the risk by making sure where possible that you're able to see your funds at all times and able to remove them at a moments notice. Not tied up behind a wall of so-called professional privilege where all you get is a monthly/quarterly update and dont get to see where it gets invested.
If anyone is interested, I'd recommend you take look at this website.
www.npcinvest.com/members