Financial adviser serving Bury and Greater Manchester
It is time to take control of your financial future today.
Anything you'd like to check before booking? Email max@financialopts.co.uk and I'll make sure it's something we can help with.
How could I help you?
A financial adviser is a trusted and highly regarded role. There are very few people who I cannot help at some stage of their life. Commonly, I find myself helping people who want to:
- Retire in comfort
- Buy their first home
- Secure suitable insurance to protect them and their families
- Build up and scale their property portfolio
- Finalise and implement tax-efficient investment plans
- Secure their children's futures today
- Explore and benefit from effective trust planning and wealth management
- Move home, or move abroad full or part time
- Ensure they are supported through tax planning
- Know they have complete peace of mind whilst building their wealth
Watch the video below to find out more
Prefer to talk it through instead?
Thinking about your pension?
Lost or old workplace pensions
Traced and reviewed, so you know exactly what you have.
Consolidation, only where it helps
Some older pensions carry valuable guarantees worth keeping. I review before recommending anything.
Retirement income planning
When you could finish work, and what your pot could realistically support.
Reviewed every year
So the plan moves when your life or the rules do.
The question I hear most: “Can I afford to retire when I want to?” That's exactly what the first conversation is for.
Meet Max
My career started in business management with leading teams, hitting targets, supporting store, regional and national goals for a large conglomerate. I loved it, but something was missing: the personal touch. I'm a people person, and none of it felt direct enough to be my forever home.
So in 2022 I pivoted into financial advice. I spent the next two years building a reputation with first-time buyers, homeowners and most notably, housing developers and landlords, helping them mortgage, manage and scale their portfolios.
Then the questions started changing. “Max, I'm not sure what our options are with our pensions.” Or an ISA. Or an investment account. So I pivoted to support my clients again, carrying that same reputation into wealth management, pensions and tax planning. At the end of 2024 I merged and joined the Financial Options Group to benefit from their strong support team, so I spend my time focusing on advising and clients rather than paperwork, allowing me to be more available for you.
Nothing beats helping clients reach goals they never thought were achievable, and providing the right advice, at the right time, implemented the right way is what did it.
Our ethos: doing the right thing when no one is looking. It's paid dividends for everyone, and I genuinely believe putting clients' interests first is what's driven our growth.
At a glance
- Diploma in Regulated Financial Planning (DipPFS) - Chartered Insurance Institute
- CeMAP - London Institute of Banking & Finance
- Level 5 Diploma in Business Management (Distinction) - Chartered Management Institute
- Certificate in Discretionary Investment - Chartered Insurance Institute
- Two-time Protection Hero Award winner in 2024 and 2025
- One of 400 nationally selected for the GFI Certificate in Financing Greener Homes
- Governor at Bury College, sitting on the Resources Committee
- Currently working towards Chartered and Fellowship status
What you could expect when working with me as your financial adviser
Professional advice
Qualified, regulated and accountable guidance built entirely around you.
A curated panel of providers
Access to an expertly curated and reviewed panel of providers and investment houses, monitored and regularly reviewed to make sure they stay on track.
The Quilter Advice Guarantee
I'm part of Quilter Financial Planning, one of the UK's largest advice networks. My advice is held to Quilter's standards and oversight: if you're ever dissatisfied with the service, they'll do their best to put it right.
A friendly hand through hard times
When things get difficult, you've got someone in your corner who already knows your situation.
Real security & protection
Clear recommendations on protecting your family, your goals and your plans.
Plans that are actually achievable
Whether quickly or over the long haul, the route is decided together.
Regular check-ins
At least an annual review, and if needs be, more regularly to support you, to make sure those plans stay firmly on track.
Opportunity-spotting
When tax rules, regulation or wrappers change, I'm the first to know and already in touch with my clients. Nobody can watch all of that and live their life too. That's exactly where I step in.
How it works
It may seem like a lot, and it can be. In reality, it all starts with a conversation about what you want to achieve, when, with who, and how you feel about your current trajectory towards those goals.
I then take our conversation and start to pull together some ideas, taking a research-led approach across our carefully monitored panel of providers to see what options may be available to support your goals. Not just pulling a product off a shelf, but taking our conversation to the panel and reviewing what may best support you in achieving those goals.
I then come back to the table with an overview, a review and a recommendation of how we can support you in your goals and dreams, now and into the future, with a formatted and structured plan.
Everything, working together
Wealth isn't one decision. It's protection, pensions, investments, planning your first home or next property purchase, tax and legacy planned as one, around your real life.
Solid foundations
Every plan needs footings. We secure the ground first, the right protection, so everything you build stays standing if life throws a storm.
Pensions, put to work
Old and scattered pension pots traced, reviewed and brought together where it makes sense, so your later years rest on something solid.
Investments that compound
Compounding does the lifting. Portfolios researched from a curated panel of providers and built around your goals and the risk you're comfortable with.
Built tax-efficiently
ISAs, allowances and the right wrappers used well, to help keep more of your money working for you.
Around your real life
Homes, family, business, retirement. The plan flexes around real life, so each milestone is funded, not feared.
A lasting legacy
Estate and inheritance planning to help pass more of what you've built on to the people you choose. Reviewed every year: the plan adapts, and what you've built is looked after for the next generation.
The real reason most people don't take advice
Why people hold back
- They assume it comes at a massive cost.
- They don't feel they've got someone they can truly trust.
- They don't feel they've got someone with time for them. So many advisers are stretched, and plenty are leaving the profession.
- They haven't met someone yet who has their goals, objectives, plans and intentions at heart.
- And honestly, advice isn't for everyone. If you haven't yet built up some assets to work with, the groundwork comes first.
This is for you if…
- You're sick of worrying about money on your own, and you want certainty in your plans.
- You want expert guidance, up-to-date products, and the better charges that come from being part of a large group and platform.
- You want someone who can take an unemotional view so everyone ends up with the best outcome.
- You want every opportunity maximised and nothing missed: investments, benefits, tax, growth, helping the kids, all kept on track.
- You want accountability: someone keeping you honest to the goals you set, so you actually reach them.
- You want your time back. Let someone else carry the research, admin and reviews while you get on with your life.
- You want peace of mind: a qualified professional watching your finances all year round, not just once.
Expected Costs / Fees: Initial Consultations have no charge. If we agree to proceed, an initial advice fee applies and a typical ongoing management fee is 1% a year. Fees will be discussed and confirmed with you as outlined in our Terms of Business, provided to you in our first meeting, to be as transparent as possible.
We apply minimum fees to our standard advice services (advice which includes a personal recommendation to you), and to work we perform for you outside of our standard services, where we will tell you before we start. The minimum advice fee for our initial advice service is £1,500. The minimum fee for our ongoing advice service is £500 per year.
What clients say
These are real-world scenarios from current clients who have experienced the benefits of working closely with me.
“From first contact Max was great, made everything really easy to understand, and his team great as well. Couldn’t rate them highly enough. 10/10 👍”
Daniel GreenPosted on Google ↗
“Max was recommended to us by a family member, and we’re glad he was. From our very first meeting, he gave us complete confidence and quickly had our trust.
As busy working professionals, it was hugely important to us to have someone who handled everything and kept us consistently updated. Even when we hit some small bumps along the way, he made them feel manageable and simply just part of the process.
Most importantly, we always felt he genuinely had our best interests in mind. We won’t go anywhere else! Cheers Max.”
Gino PetrilloPosted on Google ↗
“We were recommended Max through a local estate agent, they told us they would share our details with him and he will be in touch. Max was in contact with on the hour. We haven’t moved home for nearly 18 years, so felt really overwhelmed with the process. Max was brilliant with us. We arranged a meeting which was held within 5 days, he was really thorough and explained every aspect of the process when applying for our mortgage. He even discussed fees and solicitors’ forecasted fees to help us with planning, and kept us up to date with our application. We would highly recommend Max, he was very professional and made a stressful process run with ease. Thank you for all your help and support Max”
Sarah DunnPosted on Google ↗
“Max has been excellent in assisting me with my retirement planning. My pension and investments were not the easiest to understand and he operated with professional and a high level of knowledge throughout. I look forward to working with Max and his team for the years to come and feel I now have real confidence in my future for me and my family. Thank you all! 😊”
Nigel GPosted on Google ↗
“I found Max as the ideal person to deal with my house insurance and pension needs, which were not straight forward. Nothing was too much trouble - he came to my home so he could sort out my requirements, face-to-face.
As well as normal house insurance and my complex pension situations, I needed temporary cover for an empty property. This he sorted in his stride.
I would recommend him without any qualms. On top of all this, he was an excellent communicator and dealt quickly with any queries I had. I could ring him up at any time.”
Paul NavickasPosted on Google ↗
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A free initial consultation with me to see what opportunities you could have. No cost, no obligation to proceed.
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Risk warning: The value of investments and pensions can fall as well as rise and you may get back less than you invest. Tax treatment depends on your individual circumstances and may change.
Areas I cover
In person across Bury, Greater Manchester and the North West, or by Teams and phone UK-wide.
Not listed? I work with clients across the UK.
Contact me today
Office
42 High Street,
Walshaw, Bury, BL8 3AN
Parent company
Opening times
Monday to Thursday · 8:30am – 8:00pm
Friday · 8:00am – 6:00pm
Saturday · 8:00am – 2:00pm
Sunday · Closed
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