Jon discusses investing for his family’s futures

My name is Jon Rocchi. I’m originally from Australia. I grew up in Perth, Australia. I came to London about 20 years ago. I only came for about 12 months, and I’m still here after 20 years. I work for Euromoney Institutional Investor in the city. I met my wife, Alina, 15 years ago. She was working with me at a company, Financial Express, which is now FE Fundinfo. We have a daughter who’s 12, Isabella, and Jacob, My son, he’s 10. My children love the outdoor lifestyle. My son, Jacob, he loves anything to do with the arts, anything to do with sound. He wants to be a DJ and he loves film as well. My daughter, Isabella, is 12. She’s quite adventurous and she’s quite outdoorsy, so we do a lot of bike riding. We walk our dog quite a lot. My wife and I sat down when my daughter was born and we looked at the type of investments we can invest for her to set our future up.

We came up with a plan. The property market has been very buoyant, so we knew we needed to save some money for my daughter if she was going to eventually get on the property market in the future. Having a look at historical rates of interest and also how equity markets performed, we realised leaving the money in the bank for our children or in a cash ISA wouldn’t achieve their investment objectives. My wife and I sat down and we looked at various platforms where we could place investments on, and we had a look at the lower paying fees options, and we decided that equity markets outperformed both fixed income and general interest rates in banks, so we decided to invest in equity markets for our children. Having a look at different asset classes, we looked at fixed income. We looked at just leaving them money in the bank.

Originally, my daughter, we set up a child trust fund for her. Now, we’ve transferred that over into a junior ISA. The advantage of using a junior ISA is it gives you flexibility. The children will be able to access that tax free in the future. We looked at different investment structures, we looked at direct equities, open-ended funds, and investment trusts. Having my children definitely changed my priorities and they are the most important thing for me. With volatility out there in the world, it gives me peace of mind knowing that I’ve set up savings accounts for them and they’re going to have some security in the future.

The funds that we’ve bought for our children have nearly doubled since we’ve bought them and they’re on track to achieve their investment objectives. The lovely thing about having investments for my children is knowing that there’s going to be a pot of money for them, which they can use for maybe further education or a deposit on a property in the future. It gives us peace of mind knowing that that’s secure for them. I would advise any parent who is looking to invest to start early and to save regularly for their children. Regular savings over a long term period will deliver great results for their children in the future.