We carried out our bi-annual client survey at the end of last year and I am pleased that we are able to share some of the results in this issue of Prospects.
First, however, I’d like to pass on my personal thanks to everyone who participated in the survey; your feedback is highly valued and the insights we receive from it help us to tailor and refine our wealth proposition, ensuring that the services we offer and how we deliver them remain relevant to you and your specific financial challenges.
It is heartening to see that despite difficult markets in the last few years, the Firm continues to achieve strong client satisfaction scores across the board as it has done in previous iterations of the survey; reflecting we hope the personal service and high level of communication our Investment Managers provide.
We also learned about some of the specific areas of concern that different clients have, ranging from individual challenges, such as saving for school fees, to the more general issues posed by today’s higher inflation rates. The lesson to us is that we need to cater more specifically to clients of diverse age groups, as clearly we all have different needs at different stages of our lives.
You did tell us that three core areas of wealth planning were top of your minds: retirement and pension planning, wealth succession planning and long-term care provision. We are in the process of planning a series of webinars to help inform on these topics, so please look out for these invites over the coming months or contact your Investment Manager.
Turning to this edition of Prospects, and considering the school fee challenge many parents and grandparents face, Ryan Gordon from our Wealth Planning team shares advice on the ways in which we can help to plan for and mitigate against the effects of the fee increases which may well come with a new government.
As the prospect of a UK election comes closer, we are in good company – half of the world’s population will head to the polls this year. heralding a pivotal time for global democracy. In our editorial this quarter, Charles Bathurst-Norman offers his opinion on the wide-reaching implications for the investment landscape, global political relations and trade.
Much comparison has been made in recent months between the rather more buoyant results seen in US and European stock exchanges and the UK’s FTSE 100 index. The latter continues to display a somewhat lacklustre performance overall, mirroring the trend seen in the last two quarters. There are undoubtedly still many excellent UK companies and our research team regularly meet with firms to critically assess their viability for investment. We continue to believe this strong emphasis on ground level due diligence puts us in the best position to discern quality companies for our Investment Managers and you, their clients. As usual, our research team highlight some of the firms they have recently interviewed in the Company Meetings section of Prospects.
Hugo Bedford CEO
