Dec 2011

'A roller-coaster year'

This year has been a real roller coaster of a ride for clients. Virtually all of our clients have money invested in the markets through their pensions and other investments and we know just how tough a year it has been watching the markets charge up and then charge back down again.  However, we do believe that our disciplined approach to investment management has proven to be robust and has gone some way to mitigating the wild swings everyone is experiencing.

As we turn our eyes towards 2012 we still dont see a settled landscape as European leaders continue to talk about talks with very little decisive action being taken.  Until the Eurozone situation is resolved then we can expect to see more of the volatility experienced this year.  However, as I write this there are glimmers of hope with jobless figures in the US better than expected, the Spanish bond sale going far better than expected and China looking like experiencing a soft rather than hard landing.

As a company, we have had a very solid year.   As clients are aware, we like to be weighed and measured by our industry and peers and this year we have retained, for the fifth consecutive year, our Gold Standard for Independent Financial Advice, for the second successive year, our Top 25 IFA Company listing, for the third successive year we were named UK Leading Adviser in the Aberdeen Platform Awards as well as a couple of shortlistings and near misses. I trust that this shows just how determined we all are to deliver and be seen to delivering the absolute highest standards of wealth management to our clients.

We further strengthened the company this year with a new highly experienced adviser, Andy Ayres, as well as a highly experienced board level appointment in Barry Hancock who joins us as a non-executive director from Standard and Poors where he was head of ratings for EMEA.  Both of these individuals are making their presence felt in all the right ways within the company.