Shane Balkham, Independent Financial Adviser

An introduction to Shane Balkham

Your career to date?
I am a former highly successful independent financial adviser who moved into full-time fund management to provide clients and their advisers with the type of investment fund that clients always stated they were looking for but could not find anywhere. I founded and developed the Equip investment process in 2003 and positioned the portfolios to provide better and more consistent returns than the industry averages.

Following the successful launch of the Equip portfolios in November 2004, I decided that I could either remain a very good financial planner or become a very good fund manager, but probably couldn’t do both as the amount of time needed to run the Equip investment process was a full-time job. In 2006 the decision to solely concentrate on the running of the Equip portfolios was taken and I have now become a fully qualified manager in my own right, holding the Investment Management Certificate and the Securities and Investment Institute Diploma. I also hold the Diploma in Financial Planning from the Chartered Insurance Institute.

I am continuing to improve and evolve both the Equip investment process and myself. I am currently studying towards the Masters in Wealth Management through the Chartered Institute for Securities and Investment. My background as a financial planner gives me a unique position in understanding the clients’ needs from a fund manager and his funds. The typical fund manager tends to be inaccessible and detached from real clients, let alone meets them, and this where I differ from most as I am actively engaged in meeting the end users of the Equip portfolios and directly accessible to both IFAs and clients alike.

Shane Balkham represents Minotaur Wealth Management which is a trading name of Honister Partners Ltd.

You have one flight, where would you go and why?
South Africa to go diving (again) with great white sharks.

Who would be your three guests at a dream dinner party?
Stephen Fry, J.R.R. Tolkien and Clint Eastwood.

Ceylon or Java first thing in the morning?
Assam.

Your favourite website?
www.top100golfcourses.co.uk.

If money was no object what would you buy tomorrow?
Tottenham Hotspur.

If money was no object what would you buy tomorrow?
To be the next David Attenborough.

A winter break, sun or snow?
Sun.

Your favourite view?
Standing on the 8th tee at the San Lorenzo golf club.

The last piece of art you bought and why?
A painting of Sandy Banks in Poole by a local artist. It was a nice picture and captured a lovely holiday with my family.

Your perfect day would be spent doing...?
Playing with my kids outside in the sunshine.