What participants say
Reflections from Hong Kong residents who have completed Moonport's pre-retirement programmes.
Participant reviews
"The portfolio review course made me realise I had three separate brokerage accounts that I had never consolidated in my mind. The inventory exercise took longer than I expected — which I think was the point. I left week two with a clear picture of what I actually held, as opposed to what I thought I held."
"I chose the withdrawal workshop specifically because my adviser had never explained sequence-of-returns risk in a way that made sense to me. The Moonport module on this was the clearest explanation I've encountered. It changed how I think about the first five years of retirement — not the mathematics, which I could have found elsewhere, but the practical implication of it."
"The full programme was demanding in a good way. The housing module in week nine was the one I'd expected to be straightforward but turned out to be the most thought-provoking. I hadn't properly considered the capital tied up in the flat in the context of the rest of the portfolio. The final review meeting was useful — it was a genuine conversation, not a presentation."
"I had been putting off thinking about my MPF for years. Not because I didn't care but because every time I tried to read about it I lost track of what actually applied to me. The withdrawal workshop module on MPF integration cut through that. Three years from planned retirement, I now have a clear view of what I'll have and when I'll be able to access it."
"I was slightly sceptical at the start — I've attended financial seminars before and they tend to arrive at the same place, which is a recommendation to buy something. The portfolio review course genuinely didn't do that. The written exercises were more useful than I expected. I'd have appreciated slightly more worked examples in the concentration section, but overall it was worthwhile."
"Completing the full programme gave me something I hadn't anticipated: a document I could actually show my husband and have a real conversation with. We'd talked about retirement in vague terms for years. Having a written framework — even an imperfect draft — made it a different kind of conversation."
Case studies
Composite accounts drawn from participant feedback. Names are illustrative.
A participant in their mid-fifties realised they had never taken a complete inventory of their holdings. Assets were distributed across three brokerages, two MPF providers, and a company defined benefit scheme from an earlier employer. They had a general sense of the total but no clear picture of allocation or concentration.
The inventory exercises in weeks one and two brought all holdings into a single framework for the first time. Concentration analysis in week three identified a significant overweight in one sector accumulated over a decade of employer stock options. The week four exercise on the allocation for a shortening horizon provided a framework for thinking about rebalancing.
Participant completed the programme with a clear, single-document view of their holdings, a written assessment of where the concentration risk lay, and a set of questions to bring to their adviser. The written output required approximately three hours to complete and will be updated annually.
A participant four years from planned retirement had a reasonable sense of their accumulated savings but no framework for thinking about how to draw from them. They had read conflicting guidance on withdrawal rates and found it difficult to apply any of it to their specific situation, which included a mix of HKD savings, MPF, and inherited overseas assets.
The sequence-of-returns module provided the conceptual framework they had been missing. The MPF integration module addressed the specific question of timing and sequencing. Working through the withdrawal structure exercise produced a draft sequencing plan — which accounts to draw from first, and under what circumstances that order might change.
Participant left the programme with a draft withdrawal sequencing plan and a clear understanding of what assumptions it rested on. They subsequently enrolled in the full programme to address the housing and cash-flow modelling questions the workshop had surfaced.
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Contact details
41 Connaught Road Central
Central, Hong Kong
Sat: 10:00 am – 1:00 pm HKT
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