Client Profile: Howard & Anne Silver
As was common at the time (1970’s), Anne and I married at a young age. I was completing postgraduate studies in Physics at Melbourne University, and Anne had commenced teaching at government Special Schools. Within two years, we left Melbourne with our 3-month-old son for a research position in the Chemical Physics department at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). We led a carefree life by the beach, and our second son was born there.
Missing home, we returned after 2.5 years. At the urging of a colleague from Melbourne University, I joined Control Data Corporation (“CDC”), then a world leader in the supply of mainframe computers to universities. Within months, I was fully committed to a major software development project and dropped plans for an academic career.
Soon enough, we purchased a cottage in Elsternwick and Anne, not having kept up her Special School certification, started a fabric store in Oakleigh with the help of a close friend whose family were clothing manufacturers. At this time, Anne purchased shop insurance for her fabric store from Tony Gilham, our first introduction to Gilham Financial Management (now GFM Wealth).
By the mid to late 1980s, we had moved into our current home in Caulfield South. Anne had gone to work with a textile company whilst I had partnered with two other colleagues in ownership of a software consulting and contracting firm. Ultimately, the firm specialised in software development for online Totalisators and Keno systems. Impressed with an animated horse racing game we had sold internationally, Tabcorp purchased our company in 1999 with a stipulation that I remain. Tiring of the corporate world, after five years, I finished full-time work.
I undertook some software consulting work for another ten years before full retirement. Throughout all this time, Anne worked for three separate textile-importing companies. She went on many buying trips to Europe whilst making sales around Australia. Anne has worked part-time in women’s fashion stores for the last ten years. She maintains a keen interest in women’s fashion and keeps fit with regular walking and gym. I have stayed occupied with daily dog walking, regular social golf, competition Bridge, keeping abreast of Scientific developments, and regular luncheons with old friends and work colleagues.
From the early 1980s, we had been running our SMSF with little external advice. Due to work and family focus, our SMSF investments were somewhat erratic, with poor returns. We heard in the late 1990s that Tony was specialising in Superannuation. Given Anne’s good experience with Tony and after an informative meeting with him and his bright new protégé Paul, we signed up with GFM for SMSF investment and retirement advice and their associated administrative services in 2000-01.
Ultimately, the common sense of GFM’s advice and the warm welcome and assistance from the staff, particularly Paul, Mai and Witi, swayed us to engage GFM. The initial advice converted our somewhat erratic investments into a portfolio appropriate to our desire for reasonable growth and retirement from full-time work at an early enough age to enjoy our final years.
As far as we are concerned, the financial results speak for themselves. By getting us to focus on the long-term financial objectives and helping us build an asset allocation, we have been fortunate to achieve relatively stable returns comparable with the best Industry funds over the last twenty-three years.
Apart from the investment results, we enjoy the GFM seminars, quarterly and annual reports, annual reviews, and an online platform for tracking and reporting on all investments.
Tony was an astute judge of talent, given his recruitment of Paul, then Patrick and James, along with excellent administrative staff and further advisors. The company has continued to grow under Paul’s leadership. The longevity of staff retention by GFM is a tribute to the company and a rare phenomenon these days.
We have no hesitation in recommending GFM to friends with realistic expectations of fund performance and the patience/confidence to focus on long-term investment goals.