Brooks Macdonald Reviews 24

My experience, thus far, with BM has been excellent. Harmy and James have offered excellent guidance and have made onboarding very easy.

My family have trusted Brooks MacDonald for over 30 years. Service and advice has been consistently excellent. Our investments have been safe and the strategy chosen has been successful.
More recently Harmy Bains has helped tidy finances as I approach retirement. He has worked tirelessly in my best interest to secure my SIPP from LV who were determined to force me into a guaranteed annuity that I believe is not in my or my family’s best interest. Harmy’s approach is refreshing in an industry where corporate interests and bureaucratic process often frustrate the consumer. In my experience advisors working within BM have always shown a customer focused approach where the advice given has been easy to understand and trustworthy.

Vicky Drysdale in the Glasgow office was a massive help. We placed a complex case with Brooks McDonald, and Vicky managed the process every step of the way to ensure the client's needs were met and the best possible solution was reached.

Spoke to one of their guys after selling my printing business. They told me to put everything into their very expensive BPS service, which was the opposite of the advice I got at other wealth managers. Grifters.

My experience of BM far surpasses my expectations of a wealth manager. The IM is extremely experienced, completely understands our priorities and has a team around him to ensure our financial objectives are met. With previous DFMs we have dealt with in the past, we felt we were working harder than our investments and the IM. Having just met with our IM it is clear we have someone who has our best interests at the heart of every investment decision made.

I have found Brooks MacDonald to be very supportive of my desires in relation to a pension investment. They treat me with respect and have served me well over the years.

Re posting my review as Brooks Macdonald seems to have had it taken down...

Poor client service - never pick up the phone
High fees for doing nothing - charge more than competitors
Average investment performance

I cannot speak highly enough of the advice and service I have had at Brooks MacDonald. Questions have been answered in a clear and concise way. I have always had excellent advice and all suggestions have been clearly explained. It has always been a pleasure to meet with my advisor.

As a rule, I do not generally feed back on matters of finance. However, I am genuinely surprised to read negative reports about BM, but then perhaps others are not as fortunate as myself in having an excellent advisor like Leanne Harvey. She has shown patience and an excellent ability to communicate financial information - the pros and cons of financial options, when individuals and other institutions have been less than helpful or plain silent!

Very detailed and understandable data presented by Leanne.

I have been with BM for many years, most recently liaising with Leanne Harvey who has offered a very efficient service with sound advice, she has taken time to explain things in detail and as always responds to any query I may have with a timely detailed response.

I have been a client of BM for more years than I can remember and am frankly shocked at the negative reviews. I have had nothing but a great service from them, particularly David Birden who has helped me through the transition to using my pension pot and planning for my retirement.
Investment returns have been good given my risk profile, and the advice given has always been appropriate and well thought through.

My financial advisor at Brooks McDonald is very efficient, friendly and knowledgable and also gives constructive advice. I am very pleased with the service I have received since becoming a client of theirs.

I find the team at Brooks Macdonald extremely knowledgeable and competent. My financial advisor ((Eren Kuzubasoglu) is a man I can trust and I rely on him to help me navigate troubled financial waters. He takes the time to explain various options and offers balanced advice tailored to my individual situation. I trust Eren’s judgment implicitly. I would not hesitate to recommend this company.

Don't care about their smaller customers, reviewed our mps product after the 3 year period our money had not grown in value yet huge amount of fees had been incurred. Very disappointing as this is our retirement money. Also impossible to get hold of anyone in the company.

Have been advised by Harmy Bains since 2018 and very happy. Harmy understands my individual needs and has always given advice relevant to me. He even reins in my risk appetite! I’m a relative newcomer to BM (about 2 years) and very happy with the team and execution so far.

Recently received sound advice regarding my savings from their Financial Planning Director. Will continue to use and recommend.

I would not recommend this company to manage pension or other funds. I paid for their discretionary management service from mid-2020 to look after my cash pension fund. The total gain they achieved on the funds entrusted to them, in a medium risk portfolio, was under 5% over c 41 months - certainly less than inflation (and below the comparatives). It was particularly galling that at the end of 2021, following the post-covid ‘bounce’ in stock markets, the portfolio was showing a gain of around 20%. However, over the ensuing c 20 months Brooks MacDonald allowed this gain to simply drain away – I would say through inaction. Despite paying their fees to manage the portfolio there was no effort to protect the gain and in reality very little action of any sort. The fees I paid to them over 40+ months substantially exceed the gain achieved on the portfolio. This has seriously impacted on the ability of my pension fund to meet my (family’s) future needs. I moved my funds away from this company towards the end of last year. I wrote to the company to complain but was, as expected, ‘fobbed off’. In my opinion the problem is that the company lacks a commercial edge – the manager dealing with my funds seemed completely incapable of understanding how to protect a portfolio gain and seemed quite relaxed to see the whole of this gain wiped out.
19.04.25: Brooks MacDonald finally responded to this review at the end of February 2025 - 18 months after it was submitted! In their response they stated that somebody would contact me and, as at April 2025, I have heard nothing. This morning I have received a message from Trustpilot saying:

"You’ve written a review for Brooks MacDonald, and they’ve asked for more details to better understand your experience. If you provide some extra information within 3 days, it’ll help them recognize your experience and respond. If we don’t hear from you, the company may not be able to recognize your review as genuine."

This strikes me as an attempt by Brooks MacDonald ('BM') to remove this review which, sadly, Trustpilot is apparently assisting them to do. As my original review stated - I wrote a comprehensive letter to BM and it was their failure to respond to this that led to the review in the first place!

After my experience with BM, I moved my funds and have been much happier with the management of my portfolio - I would not trust Brooks MacDonald with my pension funds ever again. In my opinion, their failure to manage my portfolio cost me a significant amount of my pension pot.

Lost £4000 in 3 years on medium risk. Not a real good investment!