Ebor Financial Planning, set against the picturesque backdrop of Thornton, is one of Yorkshire’s most prominent independent advice firms. With 2020 being a disruptive year, the firm has placed a greater focus on client reviews and ensuring that clients are given the support and advice that they need to stick to their financial plans. Summing up the firm’s approach to planning, operations director Jelena Savonina says: ‘We deliver decisive and compassionate advice and help clients to break complex problems into small actionable steps, which ensures that the important things get done.’ With online visibility becoming more important this year, Ebor has started working on a new website. It has also transitioned to an online service, making use of videoconferencing and communication tools such as Microsoft Teams and Zoom. ‘The means of advice are changing and people are accepting new methods of work,’ Savonina adds. In step with this, Ebor has reduced office space in Thornton and will be making it easier for clients to engage with them online. Savonina also points out that Ebor has been very supportive of flexible and remote working, which has been essential this year.
Pareto specialises in creating long-term strategic partnerships with professional practices across the North West. The firm prides itself on its company culture and values, and it believes that is what sets it apart beyond the services it offers. Pareto also offers a progressive adviser training programme, where people learn the soft skills needed, along with the technical expertise, to become a client-facing adviser. It has also invested in a dedicated employee benefits department to enable them to further support its corporate clients. The firm’s founding director, John Stevenson, is the trustee of local cancer care charity Beechwood. Stevenson’s focus is on working with the fundraising team to maximise event potential and raise the profile of Beechwood within the business community. In one single event in 2018, Pareto raised £218,450 for the charity. In 2019, the Pareto team supported local charity Lifeshare, donating food throughout the year as well as raising and donating funds through activities, such as running the Manchester 10K. Their charity of 2020 is the Rainbow Trust Children’s Charity, which provides bespoke support for families who have a child with a serious illness. While the team have had to adjust their planned fundraising activities to fit in with Covid-19 restrictions, Pareto still has several virtual fundraising events planned.
Lowes is a chartered financial planner, which has provided independent financial advice to people throughout the UK since 1971. Lowes believes that individual and dedicated client care is a central aspect of fulfilling its goal of total peace of mind for its clients. It has almost 90 committed professionals, all sharing the company ethos of ‘where personal finances are cared for personally’. Over the years, its personal approach to financial planning has helped both clients and the company prosper. In its 2019 client satisfaction survey, more than 95% of its clients rated the service as ‘good’ or ‘very good’. Lowes is in the fortunate position of being able to not only acknowledge its social responsibilities but to also provide support to a wide range of charitable causes. Every year, each member of the Lowes team nominates a preferred UK registered charity to receive a minimum donation and the dedicated charity committee, comprised of five Lowes employees, considers funding requests. Throughout the course of 2019, the Lowes Charity Committee provided more than £100,000 of financial support to a wide range of worthwhile charities. Additionally, the company is in the early stages of launching a financial planning academy to encourage and train the next generation of advisers, not just for Lowes but for the wider market. Two maths teachers have been recruited to head the proposition.
Equilibrium says its purpose is to make people’s lives better. That includes its clients, its team and its community, from the advice it gives to clients and their families, to the internal training programmes developing the team as well as the Equilibrium Foundation, supporting local causes. The Equilibrium Foundation has raised more than £400,000 for worthwhile causes, smashing its original target of £250,000 by 2020. The firm is now committed to reaching its £4m fundraising target by August 2028. This is not the only ambitious goal that it has set. Equilibrium aims to have £4bn of assets under advice by 2028. During the course of 2020, when face-to-face meetings became impossible, Equilibrium adapted. The firm moved its meetings entirely online and has kept in touch with clients with regular communications throughout the lockdowns. A recent client survey found that 100% of clients felt they were kept up to date by Equilibrium and thought the business was supporting their wellbeing.
National firm Progeny, whose headquarters is in Leeds, is a one-stop shop for independent financial planning, investment management, tax services, HR, and private and corporate legal counsel. It is the first and only firm in the UK to bring all these services together. The firm uses technology to eliminate paperwork, improve communications and enrich the relationship between client and adviser. This helps create, enhance and preserve wealth. Progeny prides itself on matching the right professionals to achieve the individual goals of their clients, and it recognises that effective financial planning must not only enable you to create and sustain wealth, but also preserve it for future generations. This has led to part of their financial planning process being called ‘stewardship’. The firm works with each client to fully understand their goals, not just for themselves, but for their children, and makes a bespoke ‘wealth stewardship report’ for them. This provides clients with a clear picture of their current position and financial progress based on their state goals and aspirations. Progeny works with four charities that are all located in the communities where Progeny’s main offices are based. It supports Dreams Come True, a national children’s charity that helps to enrich the lives of those with life-limiting conditions; Martin House Hospice in Leeds, which provides family-led care for children who will live short lives; St Luke’s Hospice, which provides free palliative care in Harrow and Brent; and Horatio’s Garden, which provides a beautiful garden for patients at Salisbury District Hospital. In 2019, the firm raised £6,000 through various fundraising initiatives.
The Private Office (TPO) is an award-winning, chartered financial planning firm that has been delivering independent, tailored financial advice for more than 10 years. Based in Leeds, London and Bath, it helps clients across the UK with their financial planning needs. Many of its expert team have worked together as colleagues for more than 20 years, looking after private clients, families, and owner-managed businesses. Clients benefit from the team’s collective knowledge, resource, time, and expertise, while still receiving the unrestricted, personalised service from a dedicated adviser. TPO offers advice that is, and always has been, fully independent. It prides itself on working for the client, not a product provider, meaning it can be unbiased. It works in partnership with all its clients to shape its approach to client’s circumstances and needs: it is a fully tailored, transparent service built around the client. While many financial firms claim to be led by sustainable principles, TPO walks the walk. It gifts 25% of its future value to environmental charities, because a fundamental value of the business is to make significant contributions towards saving the planet. TPO’s majority shareholder is one of the leading environmental philanthropists in the UK with a track record in instigating and actively supporting UK and global environmental charities and causes, including the Trillion Trees campaign.
Berry & Oak has spent much of 2020 perfecting its client engagement. It hosts client events to provide a financial education and spread the word about financial planning. Topics have covered planning for retirement, the impact of Brexit and how to stay safe online. These events have had very positive feedback from clients. On the charity side of things, two of Berry & Oak’s team members are Scout leaders at different Scout groups, spending 100 hours between them to help run events for children. Team members also ran in the Great North Run half marathon, raising £1,500 for the Alzheimer’s Society. Berry & Oak sponsors the City of Leeds basketball team, donating £750 and regularly driving the team to away games. Berry & Oak created a graduate trainee scheme that aims to achieve adviser level within five years. All team members take turns sitting in on client meetings to see whether they may be interested in doing it in the future. The firm is in talks with two students about the graduate scheme. The firm has also attended the Leeds University Business School with the Yorkshire CISI, presenting to students on the range of career opportunities in financial planning. Sarah Elson, co-founder of the firm, attended Next Gen Bootcamp at Manchester University where she joined a panel of four judges giving feedback to the students on their presentations in a Britain’s Got Talent-style event.
In the centre of Liverpool, you can find Pavis Financial Management. For more than 25 years, Pavis has been providing independent financial advice for generations of families and companies. The firm believes in developing long-term relationships with clients, some of whom involve three generations of the same family. It does so by trying to involve the children of families at the earliest possible opportunity. Pavis Financial Management has no revenue or growth targets. Instead, their key performance indicator is client reviews. The firm have found that by just looking after the client service bit, the referrals and acquisitions of clients take care of themselves. The firm boasts of being both chartered financial planners and an accredited financial planning firm. This means that Pavis has satisfied the rigorous criteria from both the Chartered Insurance Institute and the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment to become one of the UK’s most trusted firms. Firms with both certifications have demonstrated professionalism through the calibre of their staff, the service it provides to clients and their ethical approach.
Informed Financial Planning has three offices across Yorkshire, located in Leeds, Hull and Barnsley, but it serves clients from all over the country. Kevin Ferriby founded the firm in 2004 after noticing that the way most financial advisers operated was outdated and the average age of advisers was well over 50. He wanted to set up a modern firm, and the firm achieved chartered status just two years later. Informed Financial Planning takes staff happiness very seriously. A wellbeing team has been formed and a budget granted to educate, entertain, and support the firm’s 35 staff with all aspects of health and wellbeing. The company has subscribed to a software package to monitor staff satisfaction anonymously across a range of topics. The firm is also very charitable, giving each staff member one volunteering day per month to help a charity that they support. Each year at Christmas the firm donates food to a local charity that helps to feed those who need it. Informed Financial Planning sponsors and regularly donates to CatZero, a charity designed to develop and deliver specialist programmes to meet the needs of children, young people, their families, and the local community. They support people across the Humber region on their journey into employment, education, and training, specifically working with groups of disengaged individuals to bring about the changes in attitude that will improve their lives.
Astute Private Wealth is a financial planning firm that always likes to ‘think differently’. ‘The clients tell us they like it that way,’ says director Paul Kelly. Being different is what sets Astute apart, and rather than selling products, its focus is to simplify matters with a financial plan that connects clients’ wealth to what matters most to them. Founded more than a decade ago, the vision for Astute was to create a financial planning business that was about more than just its shareholders. Set against an ever-changing financial services landscape, the management team wanted to build a stronger, more thoughtful business that enabled and empowered its growing team to deliver on its commitments to first class advice and high-quality client service. Since its beginnings, the firm has proven itself as an exceptional adviser company, earning a reputation for objectivity and empathy in the financial planning and investment management space. During 2020, it established its adviser academy to help develop the next generation of advisers and enhanced its investment proposition by launching a range of risk-managed open-ended investment companies. Astute is also aware of its responsibilities to the wider community and, via its annual charity of the year, has taken great pride in supporting a variety of causes including the Mental Health Foundation, Children with Cancer UK and Cancer Research UK.
Depledge Strategic Wealth Management is a firm of chartered financial planners based in Manchester, with clients across the UK. It provides bespoke, independent financial planning services to help clients and their families achieve financial independence. Many of its clients are current or former business owners, company directors and senior professionals. The firm was established in 2013 by Andrew Day, who has more than 20 years’ experience as a regulated adviser and is one of the most highly qualified advisers in the UK. The adviser team comprises of Day, Adrian Mahon and Ben Lancaster, with Dan Gordon expected to join the adviser cohort in the future. Depledge is a proud holder of the Chartered status and also certified with the British Standards ISO22222 and BS8577, demonstrating that the financial planning business runs to the highest level of recognised processes in place. The firm continues to have excellent feedback from clients. Client communication is paramount, and Depledge primarily achieves this through regular service meetings and a secure client portal. This is backed by the firm’s regular electronic monthly communications and its ongoing work in the community. Depledge continues to assist a local hospice and homeless shelter, donating a number of sleeping bags.
Five Wealth offers independent financial planning advice and investment management to individuals, trustees and businesses. Based in Manchester, the firm looks after clients across the UK. It is proud to hold chartered status and follows a strict code of ethics in its dealings with clients. Five Wealth is committed to investing in youth and developing talent. It has its own graduate training programme, which has been hugely successful. The company also strives to promote the profession and raise financial knowledge and understanding in the wider community. In August, it held its annual Five Wealth Introduction to Finance event: a week-long programme of webinars covering important financial topics for young people to help prepare them for life after school or university. It also supports the Personal Finance Society’s ‘My Personal Finance Skills’ programme. As part of this initiative, director Stephen Hughes has been going into schools (via Zoom since the pandemic) to deliver financial education workshops to students. Five Wealth aims to leave a legacy of being a good employer and of giving back. It supports and raises funds for various groups including Mustard Tree, Bolton Lads & Girls Club, Kids At School In Nepal, Manchester Rugby Club, Greater Manchester Mayor’s Charity and Support Dogs.
Gale and Phillipson is an independent whole-of-market financial planning and investment management firm, offering services to personal, corporate and trustee clients throughout England. Its holistic approach is designed to meet both simple and complex client needs and react to situations as they develop, while creating and protecting client wealth. Dating back to 1905, Gale and Phillipson has a strong history and enviable reputation for providing innovative, professional and secure financial planning and wealth management solutions.The firm provides comprehensive and focused financial planning advice, discretionary investment management, advisory investment management, mortgage advice, corporate financial advice and the industry-leading cash management service, Dynamic Cash Management, to UK clients. With offices in North Yorkshire, the North East, London, Kent, Surrey and Hertfordshire, it services both personal and corporate clients across the country. The firm believes that working with and helping local communities and charities has been a vital part of its success. For example, they have been proud sponsors of local community and sports groups for many years.
FMB Financial Planning sits where Cumbria, Lancashire and Yorkshire meet on the edge of the Lake District. The firm was founded in 1987 by the late Les Beavis, and daughters Liz Beavis and Ruth Power are on the board alongside Roger Jackson, certified and chartered financial planner, and Gill Forrester, who has been at the firm almost from the beginning. With a team of 27, FMB manages most functions internally with some external support. The investment ethos is flexible to suit the client, but it generally uses multi-assets with a mix of active and passive. ‘Our clients love the friendly atmosphere and the spirit of collaboration in the firm. You can feel it when you walk through the door,’ managing director Liz Beavis says. ‘We have such a range of clients from different walks of life, but I guess the common thread is they all value the personal touch and the way we take care of them.’ The firm has been working on extra communications both by email and post, and online events have been a new experience for many of their less tech-savvy clients. A gin-tasting session on Zoom is scheduled this month. With the catchment being so rural, online events could become a useful permanent feature.
Castlefield is a group of investment and advisory businesses specialising in socially responsible investment. As well as providing financial advice to individuals, businesses and trustees, the firms manage their own sustainable funds in-house, alongside various DFM solutions to third-party IFAs. Castlefield traces its roots back to the inception of ‘ethical’ investing in the UK and so have the experience and pedigree to help tackle the demand from clients for an authentic approach to ESG issues. Shared ownership and the fact that both employees and a grant-making charitable trust share the business and profits lies at the heart of their approach. The Castlefield story began in 2002, when a small team of colleagues decided to found a business that could provide a truly personal service. They wanted it to be a business with clients at its centre and one that could give all colleagues the chance to share in its future. The core team of the initial investment management business came from the UK fund management arm of a pan-European private banking group. Managing investments for charities is a major focus. That said, following the acquisition of the UK’s two oldest and most well-established ethical financial advice firms, it is now an integrated advice and investment management group, widely recognised for its expertise in responsible and sustainable investment.
LIFT-Financial is an independent chartered financial planner firm with offices in Altrincham, Edinburgh and London. Launched in 2007, the firm prides itself on high standards and quality client care. Becoming chartered was its aim from launch, and its values underpin this. To deliver these values, it has a team of exceptional professionals, both in terms of their level of technical knowledge and in the way they engage with clients. Most advisers have chartered status as well as being fellows of the PFS. The team is focused on helping clients take control of their finances and working to make their future financially secure. They do this by being upfront, fair and clear about charges; providing clients with first-class advice and service that exceeds expectations; putting the needs of their clients at the heart of what they do; and constantly striving to improve and innovate. Over the years, the team at LIFT-Financial have been rewarded with loyal clients and numerous awards, including Chartered Firm of the Year by the PFS and the Gold Standard award for Independent Financial Advice multiple times.
Manse Capital understands that one size does not fit all and, with more than 20 years’ financial planning experience, aims to simplify financial advice to bring greater financial security and certainty to people across the UK. They are passionate chartered (CII) and accredited (CISI) professionals, delivering great outcomes for their clients to help them make smarter financial decisions and to achieve and protect the lifestyle they desire. Since 1996, Manse has been committed to providing the best client experience. The company culture is defined by its core values and it is proud to be growing a business that makes a difference to the lives its clients lead. The journey started in 2000 with a move to fee-based financial planning using cashflow modelling to build plans and evidence-based investing to deliver required outcomes. This was ahead of the profession at the time, and Manse Capital has striven to remain at the forefront of financial planning thinking. The proposition has evolved to embrace lifestyle financial planning, putting the client front and centre of the process by focusing on the life they wish to lead and drawing on the work of CEG and Kinder to support this approach.
Daintree Wealth Management is a purpose-driven and values-led business. It was founded to force change and improvement in the financial services industry, providing the tools, education and coaching to enable as many people as possible to become and remain financially independent and improve their lives. Daintree achieves this through its core values: client obsession; pioneering, long-term thinking; and positive community. These values are the foundation of the firm’s standards of performance, which are the behaviours and expectations members of Daintree live up to. These behaviours and expectations have proven their worth during this testing year, which, despite the challenges, has seen Daintree improve and grow significantly, examples of which include: the successful recruitment and training of three new members of Daintree, comprising two graduate level trainee financial planners and an experienced financial planner; the acquisition and integration of a financial planning firm; building a discretionary ESG portfolio range following client demand; and creating a discretionary investment management solution for financial planners, which is attracting attention.
Formed in October 2013, Glennan Wealth Management (GWM) was established to provide a highly personalised wealth management service to a restricted number of client families, predominantly based in the North of England. This was to be a lifestyle practice for owner Lee Glennan and his family. He has three daughters and wanted to be able to spend time with them growing up. GWM’s interpretation of ‘wealth management’ is a service that can be split into two parts. First, financial planning: The firm uses sophisticated financial planning software to show clients their financial futures cashflowed forwards, therefore helping the clients to live ‘their best lives’ based on all the resources available to them. Secondly, investment management: It then aligns its clients’ money with their plans. The investment proposition is based on science and evidence. GWM has an annual planning meeting for every client as a minimum requirement and then as much additional contact as required. GWM’s aim is to provide a financial concierge service tailored to each client. The business is a chartered financial planning and an accredited financial planning firm, as designated by the CISI.
Fraser Wealth Management is one of a handful of chartered financial planning firms in the North of England to have achieved BS8577 certification, which is the only British standard for financial planning firms. This is a standard the business first achieved in 2016 and has since maintained every year. Achieving recognition through independent certification is a key strategy for the business in its aim ‘to be the best we can be at everything we do’ and it strives to maintain high standards and pursue continuous improvement. All four of the firm’s advisers are chartered financial planners and are all certified to ISO22222, which is an international standard that provides a framework for best practice in financial planning. Fraser Wealth Management first achieved Investors in People recognition in 2005 and has maintained IIP Gold certification since 2015, demonstrating a strong commitment to developing its staff to provide an excellent service to its high-net-worth client base that averages more than £1.1m in assets under management.
Welcome to the New Model Adviser regional Top 20s, in partnership with PIMCO. As part of our commitment to the regions across the UK, we have launched our regional Top 20 publications, showcasing some of the best firms within financial planning and wealth management. We have covered England’s Midlands, South East, South West and North, and Scotland. Each Top 20 list focuses on the firms we think are doing great work building bonds with clients and driving the profession forward, both in terms of growth and best practice. This special publication corresponds with our virtual regional roundtables, also in partnership with PIMCO, which focuses on building bonds with clients, particularly during the pandemic and challenging lockdowns. This issue, we look at the North of England. Our list highlights the firms that are championing great advice, especially during a year when firms have had to adapt and overcome difficulties to ensure they are still providing clients with great service. There are plenty of great financial advisers working across the UK, and those listed in these pages are providing dedicated services throughout the North. One of the biggest things that shines through, regardless of which firm you speak to, is that it is all about the clients.
The huge disruption the pandemic has caused is having ripple effects within the way financial advisers and providers communicate with each other and their clients. Still, issues such as the advice gap and preparing for the big wealth transfer to the next generation continue to pose challenges to consumers and the way they perceive financial advice as a profession. In the first of a series of regional events across the UK organised by PIMCO and Citywire, advisers from the Midlands and city fund managers met on Zoom to share their views on how to build and maintain long-lasting client relationships. Communication is key Communication with clients has inevitably been more frequent since the Covid-19 outbreak, advisers say, but working towards maintaining a high level of trust with clients hasn’t changed because of the pandemic. ‘Being yourself and telling the truth’ has been the constant mantra for Philip McGovern, managing director for Henley-in-Arden-based MPA Financial Management. ‘Clients trust truth, and obviously, continue to produce solutions for what they want to do during their lifetimes and try to satisfy their goals’. But sometimes, building durable relationships doesn’t have to be centered around financial statements and investment talk – a simple, kind gesture can do the trick. For example, Gary Metcalf, director at Gemini Wealth Management, shared the inspirational and heartfelt book, The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse, with a client, who spent lockdown on his own. ‘The feedback I had was amazing,’ says Metcalf. ‘Nothing to do with financial services, just showing that you think about them and you care about them. I do a lot of that sort of stuff with my clients, and it works, and they tell other people and it’s a good referral tool, as well.’ The event’s participants have also discussed building relationships with fund providers, where other dynamics are in place. Joseph McCurdy, vice president and account manager at PIMCO, says timely and appropriate communication and the ability to avoid information overload is what emerged the most during the pandemic in his business relationship with advisers. ‘You do have to be able to know when to step in, but sometimes you have to know when to step out,’ says McCurdy. ‘Going through that period, it’s providing people with the appropriate information. To explain what’s going on in the market, can I produce something that will allow you to communicate better with your clients?’ In the height of the pandemic, where markets saw the biggest selloff in decades, one challenge was how to communicate bad news. As Gareth Cope, chartered financial planner at Intelligent Wealth Partnerships, puts it, ‘you can’t sugar coat these things,’ so advisers need to explain clearly what is happening in markets and what they are planning to do to protect their portfolios. Changing the perspective For many years, or at least since the introduction of RDR in 2010, adviser businesses had to cope with a change in their models, meaning that a large chunk of the market couldn’t afford financial advice at a reasonable price. This has caused an advice gap that still resonates today within the industry. Changing people’s mind on financial services remains tricky, advisers say. The trust element always comes into play, says Ian Smith, director of Central Wealth Planning. ‘I don’t think there’s a particularly easy way to suddenly get people [financial advice] that are not interested or don’t trust us to suddenly trust us, apart from if they get somebody else to tell them who they know and trust,’ Smith says. Another issue around the advice gap is capacity and the ability to travel around the country to meet clients. Cope thinks it is in the hand of the next generation of professionals to find more efficient ways to reach out to existing and new clients. ‘It’s going to be the next generation that does it through social media. I’ve been doing it for over 20 years. It’s not going to be me that does this, but other people coming into the industry,’ Cope says. Attracting younger clients can help build a larger audience, albeit this might not immediately be profitable for advisers. One way to attract a younger clientele is to engage with the daughters and sons of existing clients sooner rather than later. ‘Advice only becomes valuable when people actually go searching for it, and advisers will know this really well,’ says McCurdy. ‘When you’re young and you’re going through that stage of getting married, having kids and so forth, you generally don’t have the money to either pay for financial advice or to invest. And it’s not until you come to the later stages of [life] where you actually inherit money or that you’re earning enough that you do put that money to work for you, that you actually see the value of advice.’ For others, the rapid increase in DB transfers has pushed more people to seek advice. This has not only raised more queries by people that had never asked for advice before, but also served as a way to distinguish good from bad advice. McGovern says: ‘With this big explosion of DB transfers the last few years, you’ve spoken to people who’d never sought financial advice before. Some people think it’s really expensive, but they don’t fully understand what they’re getting for it.’ For McCurdy, to bridge the advice gap is to demonstrate the value of advice and finding better ways to connect the older and younger generations, especially when it comes to intergenerational wealth planning. ‘You spend two or three hours with a client and the client at some stage, does have to appreciate that they’re not necessarily just paying for those two or three hours – they’re paying for the 20 years of experience and the exams and the training and everything that you’ve done through that period of time in order to condense their needs into those two or three meetings in order to deliver them a solution,’ McCurdy says. For Gemini’s Metcalf, building bloodline protection Wills has worked well as a way to engage with his clients’ children, the trustees and beneficiaries of the will. ‘Certainly, when you’ve got your top clients passing large amounts of money down to their children, they need to understand the value of that and the role of the trustee and the executor,’ he says. ‘Doing any inheritance tax planning, you would like their children there because they’re the ones that will benefit from any amount of inheritance tax planning you do.’
On top of technology Many lessons have been learnt since March, and the world has come to terms with the start of a new normal. Technology has been a protagonist of the pandemic for those lucky enough to be able to work from home. For Tim Kirby, co-founder of WKM Wealth, technology has been ‘massively important’ especially since his firm launched during the pandemic. ‘We’ve known nothing else other than being tech savvy to operate the business,’ says Kirby. ‘We’ve invested quite a lot in our online portal, which the clients are really enjoying and really like the two-way shared communication through that. ‘I came from a more traditional firm before I left and set up WKM, and I can only imagine the difficulties perhaps they’re having, not being tech savvy as a business, but all firms have learnt over the last six months that clients are pretty adaptable,’ he says. While most clients have surprised advisers in how quickly they have adapted to technology and online meetings, things have proved more challenging when building new relationships from scratch. ‘I’ve spoken to people that have taken on new clients very well and we’ll wait and see whether we can do annual reviews again by Zoom,’ Cope says. ‘I suspect we’ll be going back to face-to-face for a fair few because I’m finding that not so many things are cropping up in Zoom. It’d be great if we could have a lot of our meetings on Zoom because we’ve got more time to do our prep or follow up work. We’ll have to wait and see in the next year whether that continues.’ Overall, the enhanced use of technology has allowed advisers and investment professionals to see clients wherever they are located. Since Covid-19 broke out, McCurdy has taken more clients onboard, and working for a US firm such as PIMCO, he was able to easily help clients across Europe, where the firm has a vast bulk of assets. ‘I did a meeting with a firm in Edinburgh and the product specialist was in Newport Beach in California. The firm in Edinburgh had four people from their investment committee dialling in from four different parts of Scotland, and for them to be able to do that and be able to question on a consistent basis was brilliant, because to get those guys into an office in Edinburgh for a meeting and get somebody across from the US takes a huge amount of resources and we don’t necessarily need to do that going forward,’ says McCurdy. Getting technical So what are the tech must-haves and must-dos in the new normal to engage with clients? Advisers agree that a coherent and clear website and the ability to respond quickly to client requests are paramount. Cope believes that the relationship with providers has not changed because of Covid but has made communication quicker, although he still likes to deal with representatives of the firm in person, instead of compiling questionnaires on their website. ‘I do like to speak to someone there rather than rely upon emails and internet forms,’ he says. The way technology has helped businesses during most of 2020 is unquestionable. As ever, it is up to the single individual and their habits to see how technology can help the relationship further. Kirby says people will still want to meet their advisers face-to-face, for example. ‘We were talking to a fund manager that manages a £1.8bn investment trust. We’d never have been able to see them face-to-face before, but now, through this type of medium, we’ve got that access. On the client side and on the provider side, there’s some great advantages to this, but it will still take some getting used to for lots of people.’
Much has changed in society since March and the beginning of lockdown. This is also true for financial advisers and their clients, who have found new ways of communicating with each other. But what has been easier for them to do to keep their conversations alive and what have been the challenges?
A word about risk: Investing in the bond market is subject to risks, including market, interest rate, issuer, credit, inflation risk, and liquidity risk. The value of most bonds and bond strategies are impacted by changes in interest rates. Bonds and bond strategies with longer durations tend to be more sensitive and volatile than those with shorter durations; bond prices generally fall as interest rates rise, and the current low interest rate environment increases this risk. Current reductions in bond counterparty capacity may contribute to decreased market liquidity and increased price volatility. Bond investments may be worth more or less than the original cost when redeemed. Investing in foreign denominated and/or domiciled securities may involve heightened risk due to currency fluctuations, and economic and political risks, which may be enhanced in emerging markets. Currency rates may fluctuate significantly over short periods of time and may reduce the returns of a portfolio. High-yield, lower-rated, securities involve greater risk than higher-rated securities; portfolios that invest in them may be subject to greater levels of credit and liquidity risk than portfolios that do not. Derivatives may involve certain costs and risks such as liquidity, interest rate, market, credit, management and the risk that a position could not be closed when most advantageous. Investing in derivatives could lose more than the amount invested. The services and products described in this communication are only available to professional clients as defined in the Financial Conduct Authority’s Handbook. This communication is not a public offer and individual investors should not rely on this document. Opinion and estimates offered constitute our judgment and are subject to change without notice, as are statements of financial market trends, which are based on current market conditions. We believe the information provided here is reliable, but do not warrant its accuracy or completeness. For investment professionals only. PIMCO Europe Ltd (Company No. 2604517) Ltd (Company No. 2604517) and PIMCO Europe Ltd - Italy (Company No. 07533910969) are authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (12 Endeavour Square, London E20 1JN) in the UK. PIMCO Europe Ltd services are available only to professional clients as defined in the Financial Conduct Authority’s Handbook and are not available to individual investors, who should not rely on this communication.
Chartered financial planning firm Fitzallan was founded in 2004 by directors Gregor Johnston and Neil Brennan, when former employer, Ernst & Young (E&Y), exited the regulated financial advice market. They were soon joined by a number of their former E&Y colleagues, since when the team has continued to grow. Both Johnston and Brennan remain key client advisers, with the advisory team boosted in recent years by Gill Hunter from Grant Thornton and the promotion of ‘homegrown’ Pamela Walters, both chartered financial planners. Fitzallan’s advisers are well-supported by an experienced and qualified team of paraplanners and administrators. The business continues on a ‘steady growth’ trajectory to ensure it continues to satisfy the requirements of existing and new clients. The firm’s client base comprises high net worth individuals, businesses and trusts, and includes professional service partners, business executives and lottery winners. Fitzallan’s clients around the UK meet their advice team at least once a year. Advisers work closely with client and other professional advisers, and regularly have combined meetings. Fitzallan also uses advanced cashflow modelling to help clients visualise their plans for the future, and relationships exist with generations of clients’ families to ensure continuity of advice and service.
Manse Capital understands that one size does not fit all and, with more than 20 years’ financial planning experience, aims to simplify financial advice to bring greater financial security and certainty to people across the UK. They are passionate chartered (CII) and accredited (CISI) professionals, delivering great outcomes for their clients to help them make smarter financial decisions and to achieve and protect the lifestyle they desire Since 1996, Manse has been committed to providing the best client experience. The company culture is defined by its core values and it is proud to be growing a business that makes a difference to the lives its clients lead. The journey started in 2000 with a move to fee-based financial planning using cashflow modelling to build plans and evidence-based investing to deliver required outcomes. This was ahead of the profession at the time, and Manse Capital has striven to remain at the forefront of financial planning thinking. The proposition has evolved to embrace lifestyle financial planning, putting the client front and centre of the process by focusing on the life they wish to lead and drawing on the work of CEG and Kinder to support this approach.
