Some more venture-capital-buys-advice-firm action. The firm in question, Ascot Lloyd, has been a retirement home (ie they’ve bought their businesses) for many smaller advisers in recent years, and is now a national mini-giant. They are, of course, going to ‘keep people at the heart of our success, further invest in technology to support organic growth’ and other corporate blah blah. The coming trend is a sale to a proper giant, whose priorities may well be very different. My thoughts? Keep on growing, guys, you’re actually leaving behind lots of clients who prefer small, local and personal. And that’s our niche and that of many like us.
“Record year for annuity sales driven by advisers”
I was asked this week whether annuities are now ‘a good investment’. They’ve been recommended very rarely in recent years, since ‘pension freedoms’ allowed pretty much unlimited drawdown on pension funds and anything left to be passed on to beneficiaries free of Inheritance Tax.