Joining St James's Place after 18 years as an IFA was a massive step for me.
The IFA world has changed beyond recognition since 1990 when I gave up my pensioned and salaried position as a manager at the solid Pearl Assurance in John William Street Huddersfied.
1990 brought Australian Mutual over to the UK on the acquisition trail and dear old Pearl was sweet talked into being asset stripped of it's fabulous High Holborn HQ, now a swanky hotel, it's loyal clients's, it's piles of cash and ultimately it's orphan assets all gleefully swallowed and re-distributed, mainly back to its Australian shareholders.
Times change and I needed to move on.
As an ethical specialist and principal of Rainbow IFA I was ploughing a lonely furrow, a member of EIRIS ethical research team and of the UK Social Investment Forum I found a niche advising those that were particular about who and what they were investing in.
Early pioneers were the Friends Provident Stewardship Fund NPI had the Global Care Fund and Jupiter the Ecology Fund.
With Profit funds were all the rage in the nineties but the promised smoothing has not materialised. Much of this is due to the profligacy of managers more concerned with maintaining their places in performance tables than managing the investments and the great British public has millions invested in these MVR (Market value reduction) bound investments.
In 2008 the investment options and possibilities are now seemingly endless. commodities, ground rents, life settlement funds, corporate bonds and ETF's (Exchange Traded Funds) are available in neat consumer friendly packages.
But 2008 has signalled the end of casual investment. Now more than ever it is important to understand the limitations of investments and in particular to know how much risk your investment carries and whether this is within your own tolerance.
Herein lies the difficulty in advising. Each client will tell you that they want the maximum return with the least risk!!
By carefully analysing the limits of each of these parameters for each individual, a tailor made solution can be recommended.
So what was the catalyst that stopped me from agonising over losing my IFA status?
It's in the small print.
St James's Place stands behind and guarantees my advice.
My clients would never expect to invoke such a guarantee but the fact that it is there, well.. it counts.
Simple.
The original guardians and founders of Pearl Assurance would have approved.
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