FAQs
FAQs
To help you, we’ve detailed some answered to our most commonly asked questions below. If there’s anything we haven’t answered for you here, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
General
Security
Investments
General
Private Capital Limited is a licensed corporation by the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) in Hong Kong, licence number AFC470, for conducting regulated activities Type 4 (Advising on Securities) and Type 9 (Asset Management). More information can be found here.
All insurance advice is provided through PCL Insurance Services Limited, which is a licensed insurance broker with the Hong Kong Insurance Authority, licence number FB1315.
The following are the names and SFC licence numbers of our Responsible Officers and Licenced representatives:
- ADKINSON Ricky James: ACP711
- BATE Mathew James: AZY412
- STOCKTON Philip Wheeler: AGO028
- ADKINSON George Alexander: BTD364
More information can be found here.
Private Capital is a Hong Kong-based Financial Planning company providing holistic Financial Planning and investment management services to Families in Hong Kong. We specialise in advising clients with a connection to the United Kingdom, whether British citizens or not, on their ongoing affairs whilst non-UK resident as well as repatriation planning.
Private Capital is a fiduciary, fee-only, independent adviser paid solely by our clients, allowing our advice to be unaffected by conflicts of interest. Our portfolios are evidence-based and built on access to institutional-quality financial solutions at the lowest cost possible.
Private Capital are licensed by the Securities and Futures Commission of Hong Kong.
We are a team of individuals with over 100 years of combined experience in financial services, passionate about helping people achieve their long-term goals and avoid the scams, pitfalls and risks presented with investing offshore.
As well as being Hong Kong qualified and licensed, our advice team are UK Ofqual QCF level 4 qualified as a minimum (the benchmark to be regulated to give advice in the UK). We are therefore aware of planning and tax considerations to offer sound financial advice in Hong Kong to those with a connection to the UK.
You can find out more about our team here.
The only revenue we make is from initial planning fees and ongoing advice fees determined by our client’s assets under management with Private Capital. We do not receive any initial commissions or trailer fees from funds, and no retrocessions or introducer fees from any platforms or other professional connections we may recommend.
We believe in being as transparent around fees as possible so we are happy to disclose our fees online.
There is not yet a regulatory requirement in Hong Kong for independent advisers or banks to fully disclose all fees and remuneration.
We operate a tiered charging structure to reduce the cost associated with managing larger portfolios and reflecting the efficiencies of scale.
More information can be found on this page.
Security
Your security is extremely important to us. We have systematic processes and procedures in place to ensure the safety of our website and your personal information.
We store our data on secure servers, where your account information is encrypted and connections between you and our servers have the highest level of security. We constantly audit, backup and safeguard data, and periodically run security audits of our software and systems. See our privacy policy for more information.
We take your privacy and data security very seriously, and do not share your information with anyone without consent.
All client assets are custodied in a segregated account with of our partner platforms/brokers. The funds used in our model portfolios are all Dublin-listed UCITS and held with the fund depository in Ireland (Euroclear).
Private Capital never hold clients’ money. Your money is held separately and in your own name at our partner platforms/brokers via third party custodians. This means that you will always have full access and claim to your assets no matter what happens to Private Capital.
At Private Capital, we are transapent and up front with our fees. You can have a read of our advisor fees here.
Our advisors qualifications are listed in each of our advisors profile page.
We are not focused on selling certain financial services that benefit our company’s bottom line more than your financial growth. We have a fiduciary duty to do what is right for our clients.
Furthermore, any additional financial planning needed for your financial situation, we disclose any additional fees which may be incurred, if necessary.
Investments
We believe in the power of capital markets to deliver positive long-term returns that lead to wealth accumulation. For the equities market, in particular, we believe that public markets exhibit efficient characteristics over the long term. For the individual investor, it is thus not desirable to try to forecast or outguess other market participants.
We focus our efforts on building data-driven portfolios to get broad market exposure with a tilt towards characteristics that have been proven to capture premiums undervalued by the equities markets. We believe in creating diversified investment portfolios, which generate the highest possible expected return for every level of risk taken by an investor.
For Private Capital, this means continuously searching the investment universe for instruments that will improve risk-return tradeoff in our portfolios. We understand that fees dramatically affect long-term returns, and endeavor to continuously lower fees for our customers by leveraging our collective scale to create cost synergies. You can learn more about our investment philosophy here.
Financial markets have historically rewarded long-term investors, and provided growth of wealth that has more than offset inflation. Over time, markets display efficient characteristics and investors are rewarded commensurately for the risks that they take. Taking an evidence-based approach to investing means analyzing empirical data and academic evidence and applying it in a systematic manner rather than trying to speculate or outguess other market participants. The aim of evidence-based investing is to give you the highest probability of success in growing your wealth over the long-term.
Academic research has identified certain drivers of higher expected returns, and we structure our portfolios to capture these higher returns whilst maintaining a broad global market exposure. We believe in creating diversified investment portfolios and understand that costs dramatically affect long-term returns, and endeavor to implement efficient trading execution and continuously lower fees for our clients where possible.
Private Capital has done extensive due diligence and analysis to make asset allocation and portfolio construction decisions to select the best funds for our client portfolio. We utilise the expertise of some of the most respected fund management companies whose interests are aligned in serving you, and who share our values and investment philosophy. We offer investment products exhibiting consistent investment characteristics and offer these at attractive institutional-level costs. These fund managers manage the underlying funds in your portfolio.
We may at times choose to alter our portfolios at the discretion of our investment committee, to deploy other funds from other fund management companies if we feel it is the best way to express our asset allocation views, or if the additional funds improve the risk-return profile of the portfolio.
A fee-only financial advisory firm, like ours, operates with a fiduciary duty, meaning we are obligated to act in the best interests of their clients. Fee-only advisors are less likely to have conflicts of interest. Our compensation comes directly from our clients and not from commission-based product sales.
Our financial advisors will guide you in the appropriate risk-adjusted investment portfolio based on several factors, including your financial goals, risk tolerance, and investment timeline.
We tailor our recommendations to ensure that the investment mix aligns well with your objectives and financial situation.