You know, people often profile you by where you live or what's your job. But behind both of those things lies a far more powerful influence, your financial freedom. Lawyers are very well trained when it comes to arguing cases and to manage risks. But very seldom you find them well trained to manage money. Today I'm joined by Nikico Chance and we are talking to you about how to build wealth and to have your financial freedom. Follow us. Good morning. Back again with Monday legal. My guest for today is Nico Chance. He is a co-founder of Dixridge Capital. Thank you very much for coming. Thank you very much for having me, Ahmed. It's a pleasure to be here. Thanks a lot. Dix Bridge Capital is a financial institution registered in DIFC and we are interviewing Nico today to tell us and teach us how to make money as lawyers because a lot of young lawyers and even the seasoned experienced ones are living on your lucky and if you don't you're going to probably need to listen to this episode and learn a lot about finance and how to build wealth. wealth as a legal professional. So again, thank you very much for coming and I would like that you take a little bit of a a minute or two to explain and introduce yourself properly to our audience. Yeah, with pleasure. So yeah, you spelled my name correctly. My name is Niko Chans. I'm a co-founder at Textbridge Capital. We're actually incorporated in ADGM in Abu Dhabi. So we chose to go to ADGM instead of DFC because as you know in Dubai DFC got very crowded. So that's why I decided sorry for the mistake more settle. So yeah I was born and raised in Switzerland where as a Swiss guy you know like there is not much choice uh to become uh something else than banker. So I started my career or a lawyer or a lawyer of course or farmer. Okay. Okay. So yeah, but I was not smart enough for becoming a lawyer. So I chose to become a banker. Um I studied in Burn University. Uh and then I started working at UBS in private banking where I moved to Surirk and then from Zurich to London and then from London for 6 months back actually to Switzerland before I came three years ago to Dubai still for UBS and uh yeah now I'm here. Last year I started my own firm. So I'm the co-founder of Taxbridge Capital. I'm running the farm uh the firm together. Now I'm confusing farm with the firm um with three partners. Okay. So yeah and we are providing financial advisory services to high net worth individuals, lawyers and uh amongst others. Very good. Um, one of the things that I wanted always to ask is what exactly do you advise? I mean, I understand very well a little bit of finance, a little bit of real estate. I understand how to save. And let's put it this way, a lot of the education, the financial education that we got at school was always to um save rather than invest uh back in the days. And then later on we learned a little bit that investment is very important. What would be your advice or your contribution to anybody who is in a professional career they get a salary or a paycheck month by month and they would like to explore and understand what should they do to start building wealth. Yeah. So I would say one point that is very important is to start as early as possible. And uh for me saving and investing can be or can go hand in hand right so you can what is very important is that you're very consistent and you do it over time and it's basically the compound effect that is very important in investing and it's very as I mentioned it's very early the earlier you start the better because over time your assets can grow and it's not important to invest in any fancy see investments or you know like sometimes you see like this crazy products that you can invest in you should always keep it very simple and over time so that's much more important than anything else I would say in investing and in order to learn about this kind of investments for beginners for for young lawyers for example who are trying to learn about this or at least to try it for the first time what sort of tools or systems or applications do you would you would recommend to start up with? Yeah. So basically if you want to get uh something that helps you with uh with no distractions you know that you actually keep on investing every month the same amount there is some apps one is called weanab there is every bank basically provides some some tools where you can do auto investments so it's also great if you if from your salary for instance you pay directly a percentage to auto savings investments So it that's already taken care of and uh yeah and then or just a Excel sheet you know like I I'm very old school in that way I always use an Excel sheet it's more important to basically visualize what you can set aside and the time frame that you want to invest in and then there's you know there's so many online websites already showing you um where you can invest and you can learn and then obviously there is financial advisor ers like our firm who can be a part of the journey of investing and also what is important always if you choose to go with an investment advisor that you choose someone who is actually educating yourself you know because it's very important in investment that you understand in what you're investing in. So if you you know if you understand the blockchain technology let's say as a very uh opportune uh example if you take the blockchain and you understand it and you want to invest in the bitcoin and you understand what is the value of the bitcoin like I say like okay it's fine like invest in the bitcoin but if you don't really understand what it does and why it's adding value for people then I would say like stay away and don't over complicate the investments. Understood. Um you know in very early days I read a book uh and I think it's a very famous book it's rich dad and poor dad and one of the things that was was very difficult for me to understand in the beginning is that how come a a a young lawyer who is starting in their career would apply the concept. So one of the most um important contest concepts in this book was pay yourself first which was the advising on to cutting a percentage of your salary for the investment more or less. Um does it really make a difference if someone is is getting paid very small amount and what is the what's the importance of the time because you mentioned that you have to start very early so the time element is also a very important thing. Do you think that you need to be able to cover your essentials in life first in order to be investing or below a certain threshold you should not be doing it otherwise it's it's useless for example so no there is basically I would say there is no too small amount to start with investing and uh to come back to the book basically pay yourself first what the what it actually means is you want to set aside this investments before you spend anything you know so now for every professional and maybe lawyers included who earn more over time you know your spending go up as well so but you want to kind of cut the spending so you want what you want to do is you want to set aside you want to pay yourself you want to let's say 10 to 30% is a good range to from your income net income uh to set aside and invest in something that uh you like or you understand. If you see the if you take again into consideration the compound effect which is very important. What does it do is basically you know you set aside money which earns returns and the compound effect means that these returns over time earn as well. So now you have this compounding effect which is a very very powerful tool and um one example I can give you is Warren Buffett like everyone knows him and uh what he did was not crazy fancy investments like he was choosing like very value stocks but very basic ones you know Coca-Cola like McDonald's Nike everyone knows this stock it's not something out of this world so what he he started very 11 years old and of course he was smart and all but he had a time. So interestingly like 99% or actually even more than 99% of his total wealth today he made after 50 years old. So at 50 years old his net worth was like 300 million and now he's 95 and his net worth is 130 billion. So he didn't do much else than just overtime investing and compounding. And you know he started with 11 years old. So he started from zero. So to come back to your question does it make sense even with a small amount? Yes it does. And since I'm in finance and maybe I want to throw in other numbers. Uh if you would start investing with $500 today. Let's say you're 25 years old. You just finished your university. I'm not. Me neither. Almost. But let's assume a lawyer is finishing the university. He's 25 years old. He wants to start investing today over the next 30 years until he's 55. So he would start with zero capital $500 every month into an index fund which generates 8% per year. At after 30 years at the age of 55 he would have 700 roughly $750,000. I mean with zero capital, right? So it's it's a insane amount I would say. Yeah, absolutely. I totally agree with you. Don't you see that in Dubai it's a bit difficult because if you're a young lawyer in Dubai the lifestyle kind of suck you in to to to wear the best suit to put on the best perfume and to drive this car because otherwise you're going to be um the only one without a Rolex in your hand. Yeah. Well, I didn't come with the Rolex by the way today as well. But um no it's it's a very valid point and I think uh even you know all this social media today is influencing a lot uh people. So what it does it creates FOMO it means like you know fear of missing out. So you would see in Dubai of course you see it on the street and you know on the people how they wear luxury goods but uh also online you see a lot of what others have you know but you don't know you the only thing actually you know is that if someone is driving a $400,000 car is that he has $400,000 less. It doesn't say anything about his wealth. The only thing is he's less worth now than he was before. So I think you should not, you know, let social media or other people influence your own behaviors. It's very important to set your own goals. And uh at the end of the day, you know, you need to be confident with what you have and not comparing all the time with what others have because especially if you live in places like in Dubai, you know, there's always someone with the nicer villa, with a nicer car, whatever whatever car you drive, there's always something better. Yes, I totally agree with you and I second that because um I I remember I remember myself honestly because I was the only guy in the Swiss firm without a Swiss watch until I bought my first watch. It was it was my start and then I no but I remember very well that I made the decision that I will uh not buy anything that is uh expensive until I uh I actually feel financially free and then decide on so when I chose my car I didn't ch choose the first car as the car of my dreams I chose from the price list what can I actually afford after uh paying the the most expensive and the important part of my uh sheet which was was investing. And uh coming to that point, what is in your opinion um an a small a smart solid investment portfolio? What should everybody think of when they choose uh building an investment portfolio for themselves especially if they live here? Yeah. So this question is really tough to answer like generally I would say because of course it always depends as you said like on let's say if you are early in your career you can take a little bit more risk you know if you're in your midcareers you can take a different you have a different risk approach and when you're very early to your retirement so it really depends a lot of each of the individuals so um what is important to understand what is my risk appetite you know how much can I afford to lose in the next 5 10 years? Is there liquidity needs that they need to cover? You know, maybe you need to if you're early in your career as a lawyer, maybe you need to pay debt, pay back some uh student debts or maybe you have children who will go to college in in three four years. So, you will need to pay for college. So, that's liquidity needs, right? And then you need to be you need to know what what you're happy with in terms of return and then also your investment horizon. So all of these four things are very basic honestly but it's very still very important because if you're you know 60 years old you have maybe 5 years to retirement your time horizon is much less than when you're 25 years old you can take more risk because if you're going to lose your money at 60 years old then it's obviously you don't have time to recover right so that's why it's important and it's very individual but if you want to give one like general general advice, I think it's, you know, just buy the S&P 500 index fund. And it's maybe not the best marketing now for me to say and then say like, why would I need a financial advisor? There's other reasons why you might need it. But if you don't have time, if you don't have any idea, if you don't want to spend like doing research and tracking the stocks every day, then I think that's the easiest and smartest way. And again, just start as early as possible and be consistent about it. When when I think of someone who is earning, I don't know, I just throw a number. If someone earning uh between $5 to $10,000 a month, okay, what percentage would you think they should spend on their life and what percentage they should put aside for investment? I I think a percentage wise is is is easier to answer when it comes to uh life and investment because a lot of people just put a lot of money on their life like up to 80 90% and they take a very small cut on the investment and they say the compounding effect will uh will help us in the end we'll do the work but what would be the healthy percentage of a salaried employee for example to do investments. I would say anything between 10% really the bare minimum to 30% ideally. And then uh of course it depends also a bit where you live like you know the living costs obviously in Dubai the the standard living cost I'm talking about are a bit different than you know in some European countries or in Switzerland or or in Egypt. So it's depends a bit how much you can actually put the way. So again it makes sense in the first place to see how much is my living cost how much are my you know spendings per month to cover my absolute fixed costs and then from there immediately you take away like ideally 10 to 30% I would say ideally 20 to 30% which you set aside for for investments. what what sort of mistakes that you see professionals especially who are salaried uh um uh employees do when it comes to investments because there must be like common mistakes that everybody is uh falling uh for common mistakes I see is uh that people actually trade rather than invest so now what's the difference trading you know involves like daily trading or weekly trading is like buying in and out stocks So which is which you can do if you have time. Now most of the people who especially who are employed they don't have time to monitor the stocks sec every day you know. Yeah. So investing is much more the success rate to be successful in investing over a long period of time is much higher than in trading actually. So I would say too many people make the mistake that they try to do trading and chase quick returns. So you know there is unfortunately no such thing as quick and high returns in most of the cases and I see it a lot of people coming uh talking to people they coming and say like okay I'm making 15% a month but of course if you make I always tell if you make 15 and then he wants to sell me the product right so if you make 15% a month you don't need to sell your product people will come to you you know they will you would not need to sell anything with this returns. Uh if it's too good to be true, you know, it's like most likely too good to be true. Yes. What's your take on real estate index funds and uh private equity in general for professionals? Yeah. So again, I think it depends a lot on the investor itself. Like if you understand what private equity does and you understand the risk related with investing in private equity and now to give you an example private equity and real estate are rather illquid in most of the cases rather illquid assets. So once you buy it, you cannot sell it immediately. Especially real estate, private equity, it depends a bit. But normally, you know, private equity is you invest over a period of time and then after 3, four, 5 years, you start to harvest only your returns. So you need to be aware like of your liquidity risk for instance. Uh then indices or even you know structured nodes, they I would say they make a lot of sense. They're more easy to understand. and they give you nice returns as well. But uh in general it really depends if if the if if the investor in understands what he's investing in and then he sees the differences and he can he can relate that to his risks uh then he can invest in it right or if he doesn't understand then maybe he needs to someone who is teaching him or he needs to educate himself. So enough talking about the young lawyers. Let's talk about the senior ones who are thinking of the very old ones who are thinking of uh of retiring. Um what sort of approach would you advise to seasoned or uh more senior lawyer if they're starting planning to retire early? Let's say they want to I'm in my 40s and I would say like I don't want to work beyond 55. Okay. people could have been the advice you give them. Yeah. No, it's uh in this age it's in your 40s. It's very important. Well, most like your salary increases, right? Of course, you have more income. So, first of all, it's important to use this more income to increase your automated savings that we we talked about earlier, right? So the percentage maybe can even go up because if you're not spending crazy now on more consumption goods then you have more to invest and grow that over time. So it's not only obviously in uh important to the time but also the amount that you invest in. So you can increase your your investments and then it's very important to you know diversify out of one income. Mhm. So it's maybe even another mistake many people do. So they rely on one income and they misconfuse or they confuse income with wealth which is actually not true. So if you have only one income stream you never know what happens you know like your your company can go bust you can get fired uh whatever worst case scenario it can happen right if you have one income stream your income is gone if something bad happens. So you want to in this age you want to diversify into multiple income streams. Now how you can do that it's there's different ways to do it. There is first of all you can obviously buy real estate and rent it out. So you will get the rent. Yeah. Second is you buy income generating assets like bonds you know structured notes that pay out coupons. Um asset classes like this make a lot of sense. So you generate actually from your investment another income stream or you can you know start your side hustle or your own small firm or whatever that generates income and to come back to the book that we spoke earlier. So you know you want to make that money actually work for you and not just work for money. Yeah. So I think uh that's very important at this age at this stage in the 40s we are more senior and we yes get uh more income but sometimes we even get um a bulk of money or a big chunk at one time because we handle the big case and we get a big bonus at the end of the year because of something that we we do. I I can tell you with with all honesty, the first thing that comes to my mind, I'm gonna buy a new car or I'm gonna buy a new watch and uh it's not really investing if I get a big amount. And I think you don't agree with that approach, but what would be your advice if a mid-level lawyer um got the opportunity to have a big chunk of bonus at the end of the year? What should they do with it? I mean, I would lie if I wouldn't agree at least partially. Uh I mean, everyone likes nice cars. I like Swiss watches as well. And uh I like nice houses like this as well. So, everyone likes the things, but I think it needs to be like, you know, again, like you need to be aware of what you can really if you can really afford it to buy and it really makes sense in your daily life. So you don't want to buy something that is too much for your even if the bonus is big but you don't want to buy like something that is 80 eating away 80% of your bonus but I am my opinion is like you want to treat yourself you know like but meaningfully let's say if you get a really nice bonus and you want to go you want to take your girlfriend or your wife over a very nice place over a weekend it's a super good idea to do if you want to buy yourself a watch that you can afford. It's a nice thing to do in my opinion. But then on the other hand, you also want to set aside maybe 80% or 70% of your nice bonus for for you know for the future. You want to invest because you don't know what happens again in the future. So you want to probably invest that amount. But yeah, I would say like it should be a a mix of maybe both. It shouldn't be like only consumption luxury goods that all of us kind of like and want but uh it should be like a fair amount of split or what I like to do or to advise also is sometimes it's good to pay back you know like normally you don't get to you know 45 years old and uh you make half a million dollar a year without support from anyone. So it's always nice to think of people who actually helped you in your time when you when you grew and where in the time where you are today, right? So you might want to buy the watch not for yourself but for your dad or for your something nice for your mom, you know, or friends or mentors or whoever helped you where you are today. Yeah. And if if someone is um nearing the retirement or some soon to to retire for example, what sort of smart allocation uh strategy they should follow? Um from your opinion? So if you if you go towards retirement, it makes sense you know to shift from growth to capital preservation. Yeah. So you would want to have like an anchor of like income generating asset classes like bonds, dividend paying stocks, uh structured notes. So all of this you want to shift into those to generate income. And why? Mainly because obviously at some point you will not get the seller anymore, right? So ideally you would want to have as much assets possible or investments possible that your daily expenses or your lifestyle expenses are covered from investment and it's very important especially towards retirement that you have this you know peace of mind you know okay I can retire if you want to write retire early and you're 55 years old and you have I don't know $5 million in investments that pays you your lifestyle expenses the whatever you need per for the year then that gives you peace of mind you know you can sleep you can you can use whatever else is coming in I don't know maybe from from another source of salary or whatever you can use for for other spendings but at least your basic needs are covered you know it's it's funny to say this but I know of uh very senior lawyers uh no names uh who are who are very well paid I I know for a fact that they are very very well paid and they still have trouble managing their financials. I don't sometimes I just don't understand why it it happens to them. I mean someone who's very well-versed senior in his field he knows very well the law and he understand it very well but still the financial intelligence is not as high as their professional acumen as as lawyers and as very smart professionals and they still struggle with the paycheck to paycheck while they're very highly paid. What is the problem? I mean I see maybe two problems and uh one could be you know they over complicate the things. So another being super smart in your profession doesn't mean that you are super smart in investing or or in finance and you know what to do. It's actually the other way around. The smarter you are the more you try to find like you know crazy investments. You know you want to do structures that are very complicated because you think yeah I'm smart. and I understand what I'm doing or you have even friends who are in finance and they do it and uh that's also something else you know in in in investments everyone always just makes money like you you never hear someone saying like oh I lost like 50% of my investments right so you only hear like the good things always and that's one thing the second one is the spending right so the higher lifestyle so immediately when you have a pay raise you start to spend and more. So what we discussed also that you know you buy the fancier car you know the the more expensive uh luxury goods. So you should not increase it too quickly and I think that's uh these two are the most common mistakes. Can you share with us a story without names of a client or someone who you advised for example and they turned things around from bad to good or the other way around something that we can learn from? So yeah, I had this one client uh when I was still working at at UBS uh in 2018. Uh he actually had uh a firm like his own firm and uh in 2018 you know this firm didn't really produce much cash flow. He paid himself a salary but there was only one income the salary and he had partner in his firm and you know because of it didn't really work out well uh they left. So they I think sold the equity and he was left uh I think with one partner and but he was very consistent. He was very sure that what he's doing is actually adding value. So he was creating he was in oil drilling. So it's a very specific thing to do but he invented a a tool to make it easier to drill oil. Right. in 2024 like the company was worth $100 million. I think what he did well like he believed in himself in what he does and he was consistent over this time and he was working hard. Yeah. Now he has a company worth $100 million and what we did with him is we we helped him obviously to sell the stakes of his company and then generate different income streams from it. So you know he would buy like real estate he would buy he would invest obviously a big portion in in the financial markets where he was generating income and what we did we wanted to create this piece of mind for him. So what we did is generated a portfolio to cover all his and honestly it was quite high in his lifestyle expenses but covered like his lifestyle expenses and uh yeah I think what we can learn from that is you know you need to believe in yourself you need to to work hard and again you need uh time to make to make things work and then you need to basically you know generate different income streams. Yeah. What what are the red flags when you see any client coming to you and tell you, okay, I have the um portfolio of I don't know $2 million of net worth and uh and and I want to work with you. What are the red flags from your opinion that we say that this is going to be a tough client to deal with or this is someone who will not follow our advices? Yeah. So I think one red flag is if the guy comes with you know too high expectation on returns and he wants to chase this quick returns and it's almost impossible to deal with like sometimes they come from you know this cryptocurrencies where they made a lot of returns and then you you offer them 10 to 14% a year which is a nice return but they're not interested in it. So it really makes it difficult. So in terms of dealing with the client, it's a kind of a red flag I would say. Um and then I think what is a red flag for a client is maybe even you know for us obviously as a regulated firm if there is any of course illegal activity. Exactly. So any due diligence any AML. So this is obviously a red flag. Yeah. But for the client itself a red flag in investing let's say would be I think if again chasing quick returns and you know with uh high returns with zero risk which is a red flag if someone offers you that like to turn the perspective and then having no emergency funds. It's something that uh many people don't have and even though you you know you you should invest but you should always have cash as well like to cover like at least 6 to 12 months of your lifestyle expenses because you never know what happens in life and maybe another red flag in is the bad depths you know like that we talked about as well like you don't want to take credit for spending on luxury goods or expensive lifestyle. Do you think every lawyer should have a financial advisor? Yes. Yes. No. Well, it depends. I would say like how early in your career you are, like how much time do you want to spend? How much do you want to educate yourself? How much do you understand yourself? If you're in your 20s and 30s maybe, you know, and you have time to manage your portfolio, you know what you're doing, and uh you can basically also do it yourself if you're consistent enough. I would say in that age like it makes sense if you want to learn more maybe you want to have a financial adviser who's educating yourself who's like kind of a coach you know like keeps you consistent like are you really investing every month you're it's more important like to be like a bit of the coach and the education part of it if it comes to the you know in your 30s 40s 50s it and you're it gets more complicated right you probably have family uh you probably have businesses or different businesses. Uh and then you're coming to an age where you're close to retirement, you want to be aware to not make any mistakes. So then obviously it's much more important to work with someone who is an expert in the field, right? Like I mean if you're a lawyer, you maybe the the argument with the neighbor you can handle yourself, but if you want to go in front of the court, you also you need a lawyer, right? Who know prevents costly mistakes. So it's basically the same in in finance I would say. When do you think it's too late to invest? It's never too late. I think uh what is much more important is that you uh start investing like today. Uh there's a saying you know that the best uh tree you planted 20 years ago but the second best time is today. Yeah. So it's exactly the same like you better start today than tomorrow let's say. So I would say it's it's never too late. And what uh advice would you give me for example if I I did not uh uh start investing and uh I want in 10 years to be financially free or financially stable. what sort of investment I should look at or how should I start? Yeah. So I think uh what you mentioned at the end it's very important that you actually start and then what is important is to have a goal in mind you know like okay you say in 10 years to be financially confident or even having financial freedom. Um how much do you need for that? Like is it for you and your lifestyle? Is it like $500,000? Is it 1 million? is a 10 million. It's different for each Yeah. uh of the people. So now you want to know exactly what you need and then kind of reverse engineer it and start and automate your investments exactly to you know calculate what you where you want to be in 10 years and then then start investing. So out of all the advices that you gave us, can you please explain to me what exactly uh Dex bridge capital can help me with and how can we start for example? Yeah, sure. So Dex bridge capital uh again is investment advisory firm. So what we do is we help people with building portfolios. We are very focused on building resilient portfolios. So you can imagine that whatever the market does and markets are super volatile especially now right like whatever happens in geopolitics or with the Trump administration so it's super volatile so we we generate portfolios which are which are very resilient um for different market movements and the portfolio also we have a focus on generating income so it's doesn't really matter for us if the if the investor of our client is uh early in his career late in his career but we try to generate a lot of income to cover his uh expenses. So that's very important for us and the ideal like client uh for us is you know the high net worth individual uh we for from a regulatory perspective we can also only uh cover professional clients. So that's for sure something that is not even in our hands. You know, if you would like to have let's say smaller and smaller investments from from clients, we cannot really cover it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, at the end, I would like to thank you very much for all the knowledge you shared with us. And if you have any last tips or advice to give to our audience, please feel free. Yeah. No, thank you very much for for having me today. It was a real pleasure being here. And uh I mean one tip to give is uh it's uh maybe not enough but uh I would say you know start early start automating your investments be consistent and uh if you don't know what to do and if you don't have anyone who can help you just buy the S&P 500 index. Thank you so much. Thank you. Well I think you heard them right. Start today. You know very well what to do. You have to invest your professional career is one thing but at the other hand your life have to be financially supported and if you want to get give more focus into your uh professional career you have to be financially free and you'll be able to do that if you build your financial confidence by investing. So start today or call Niko. Thank you.