• About
  • Events
  • News
  • Newsletter
Adviser Home
  • CPD Centre
  • Development Solutions
    • AXA Investment Managers
    • Seneca Investment Managers
    • BMO Global Asset Management
    • Tacit Investment Management
    • Downing Fund Managers
    • Aegon Corporate Protection
    • Tax Planning Support
    • Outsourced Investments
    • Orbis Invest Differently
    • FundsNetwork
    • Brooks Macdonald
    • T. Rowe Price - Where Better Decisions Begin
    • Centralised Retirement Propositions
    • Aegon - Supporting financial advice
    • Tax Planning Investments
  • Resources
    • Technical
      • BPR due diligence video
      • Investment Planning; November inflation numbers and more.
      • Investment planning; global dividend payments, RPI Calculation and more.
      • Financial planning considerations around Pensions, Investment Accounts and ISAs
    • Regulation
      • An honest view of ESG: Matthew Jellicoe
      • ESG Viewpoint: Coal's Uncertain Future
      • How to combat pensions scams
      • How the Pension Schemes Act will affect your clients
      • IFAs and regulators must focus on drawdown underspending
      • How Will Regulatory Changes Impact ESG?
      • What the US election result could mean for markets
      • The Money Marketing Podcast: US Election Special
      • A guide to ESG and responsible investing
      • Is ESG for the money or the morals?
      • Inducements - what's in and what's out?
      • Investment scams booklet
      • The role of stewardship in ESG
      • The performance review: We put 10 ESG UK equity funds under the microscope
      • Are DFMs meeting the ESG challenge?
      • Increases to the state pension and lifetime allowance
      • Pensions & ESG – the DWP strikes back
      • FCA focus on ‘sustainable finance’ set to increase
      • An asset class growing in popularity: What advisers need to know about peer-to-peer lending
      • A practical guide to Pension Transfers from defined benefit to defined contribution
      • How to manage your CPD
      • What do high UK government debt levels mean?
      • Next state pension age review must assess Covid-19 factor
    • Marketing
      • Navigating the new normal: how marketers can humanise and personalise the consumer experience
      • Building Customer Trust: The Stages to Leveraging Preference Management
      • Successful Strategies to Win New Business
      • How to build a digital adviser. Part 1: your website
      • How to build a digital adviser. Part 2: emails
      • How to build a digital adviser Part 4: social media
      • Your Guide to Business Development in the New Normal
      • Creating a successful digital advice model
      • A simple guide to Metadata
      • Blogging Checklist
      • Marketing Checklist
      • SEO checklist
      • Website checklist
      • Case Studies
      • Investment Guides
      • ABI Making Retirement Options Clear
      • Equity Release - Not For Me
      • PMI - New Market Opportunities
      • Social Media Training
      • Adviser PR
      • Web Review Service
      • Communication Reviews
      • Corporate Design
      • Tailored Web Development
      • E Mail Marketing and Communications
      • Unconscious beliefs ‘key’ to sticking to advice plan
      • Advisers must embrace digital tech, just like their clients
      • The Insiders' Guide on How to Grow Your Business During Lockdown
      • Trends 2021: Selective innovation and getting personal
    • Team Development
      • ISO 22222 - Increase your professional standards
      • SOLLA - Later Life Adviser Accreditation
    • Technology
      • Increase client face to face time
    • Proposition
      • Is now the right time to be adding risk?
      • Your clients’ retirement could have been hit three ways by 2020
      • How to introduce clients to protection
      • The Insiders’ Guide on How to Grow Your Business During Lockdown
      • Value vs. growth - who wins?
      • Building a Living Pension
      • Why 2021 could be the year of the Ssas
      • The New Protection Challenge
      • The best and worst performing funds of 2020
      • FTSE soars 3.1% on first trading day of 2021
      • Demand for advice set to 'grow exponentially' this year
      • Handling vulnerable clients who want equity release
      • Preparing your clients for a K shaped recovery
      • Shift in retirement journeys set to reshape the market
      • Managing risk in volatile markets
      • State pension now a whole lot more important for planners’ clients
      • Govt boosts support for self-employed during lockdown
      • Covid-19 job cuts cause over 55s to re-think retirement plans
      • Covid has changed advice needs
      • ESG for income and growth
      • Savings surge is an adviser opportunity
      • Four in five UK adults say they don’t have a ‘pension will’
      • Combining pensions and property
      • Why transfers in drawdown will be a key theme for advisers
      • Clever Adviser Technology Ltd
      • The Value of Advice - an insiders guide
      • The Value of Advice
      • Adviser Home Guide to Innovation
      • Designing your service proposition
      • Effective Cash Management
      • A managed sale, move and funding service for your retired clients
      • Private Medical Insurance
      • Portfolio Comparison
      • Cashflow Modelling App
      • Defaqto Engage Core
      • Protection advice made simple
      • Client Reports and Online Paraplanning
      • Technical Support
      • Guide to the changing face of protection cover
      • Advising on income protection
      • Business Protection
      • The future of cashflow modelling
      • Equity available in UK homes soars to £600bn
      • Battling the pension scammers
      • Billy Burrows: The way we advise clients will change
      • Why advice finally feels relevant
      • South West: Bonds we can depend on
      • Pandemic forcing a widespread rethink of retirement plans
      • Guide To Post-Covid-19 Retirement Planning
      • Global Investor Behaviours and Attitudes: A Cross Generational Overview
      • Rohan Sivajoti: The one page business plan
      • Protection conversations increasingly common for advisers
      • Generate new business with tax-efficient investments
      • Fixed income in the new normal
      • The risks that investors should prepare for in 2021
      • FTSE sinks 3% amid Covid chaos
      • Longevity: The hub of retirement planning
      • Are investors adjusting to the new normal?
      • Women urged to check pensions for underpayment
      • How to manage pitfalls of giving wealth to next generation
      • The dangers of drawing too much, too soon
    • Adviser Business In Testing Times
  • Sustainable Investments
    • Sustainable Investing - M&G
    • Sustainable Investing - Schroders
    • Sustainable Investing - Hermes
    • Sustainable Investments - Pictet
  • About
  • Events
  • News
  • Newsletter

Weekly Updates

John Lappin

Our Industry Commentator with his top news links each week.

Curtain comes down on Equitable Life

The Christmas break saw two sorry tales in financial services enter the closing chapters.

Equitable Life was bought out by closed insurance office specialist Utmost Life and Pensions. Long-standing pension journalist Stephanie Hawthorne has written a good analysis in Pensions Expert.

It was very interesting to see a letter writer to the Financial Times taking issue with the headline which suggested the insurer had finally left the stage – not, argued the reader, while a million policies were still in force.

Another rather more short-lived but still distressing story also came closer to a close – Woodford Investment Management has passed the management of the Woodford Income Focus fund to Aberdeen Standard with the fund expected to reopen in the next couple of months.

Management of the Patient Capital Investment Trust has moved to Schroders. It has been renamed the Schroder UK Public Private Trust (SUPP!) and, as Citywire reports, lender Northern Trust has renewed its credit facility for another year.

Turning back the problematrical flagship fund, Citywire has a very interesting story concerning complications affecting the wind up. The fund had made a binding commitment to Rutherford Health and had ploughed £15 million into the cancer treatment company at the start of the year. This small healthcare firm still have access to more of this drawdown facility. This is making it more difficult to return money to investors as part of the windup. The first payment is due on January 20th.

Essentially, the Woodford saga seems to have quite a long way to run though hopefully not as long as Equitable Life.

Turning to other news, we should ask whether IFAs will miss Andrew Bailey when he is gone. (I doubt it) The FCA chief executive Andrew Bailey surely achieves a lifetime’s ambition and will become governor of the Bank of England leaving a vacancy and a mixed legacy at the FCA.

Advisers have been warned to potentially brace themselves for a No Deal Brexit at the end of 2020 by Schroders Private Wealth with the Prime Minister promising to move out of alignment with the European Union regardless of whether a free trade deal has been completed or not.

The UK would theoretically have to ask for an extension to the transition where the UK remains aligned with EU rules for another year by the start of July this year. The UK government has indicated it plans to do no such thing.

Money Marketing reports that four potential phoenixing firms decided not to do so after ‘chats’ with the FCA. Progress of a sort then.

Back

Our Sponsors & Partners

Octopus Investments
Aegon
Orbis
BMO Global Asset Management
Funds Network
Clear
Schroders
Pictet Asset Manegement
Brooks Macdonald
Previous
Next

Contact Us

  • Partners
  • Contact Us
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Data / GDPR
  • Privacy Statement

Social

Follow us to stay up to date with the latest industry news

  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn

Newsletter Sign Up

Fancy getting all the latest news direct to your inbox?

Please do not fill in the above field to help us identify genuine requests.

Adviser Home

© 2021 Adviser Home

Website by Clear

Back To Top

Sign up to the Adviser Home newsletter

Please leave the above box empty.

After you register your details with us we will communicate with you by email as follows:

Each week you will receive an update bulletin “InfoMix”. You will also receive, normally weekly, a single email on a subject of relevance to your role as adviser or provider.

For providers we will also from time to time - normally 3 or four times a year, tell you about Adviser Home initiatives or opportunities for you to partner with us.

At any time you can elect to stop receiving emails by unsubscribing.

Your data will only be shared with a third party with your specific written agreement. Our full GDPR policy is found here

Please leave the above box empty.

Please leave the above box empty.