An update from CAM CEO, Nick Coghill

As 2024 draws to a close, I want to thank you all for your support this year. Once again, it has been a difficult time for many, with political and economic upheaval both at home and abroad. Most recently, yesterday’s Autumn budget has led to a huge increase in the tax burden across firms and individuals alike, with both direct and knock on effects. Our job has been and will be to continue to work with you and your families to navigate the market impact, analyse the fine print of the new rules and ensure that we continue to focus on enabling you to achieve your own life goals. This is where the strength and depth of our personal and family-based values approach truly comes to the fore. Combining the depth of professional knowledge that our highly experienced team bring to bear with our detailed understanding of your personal circumstances will enable us to provide you with the very best support.

Regulation has continued to be a major theme throughout 2024. We welcome the positive moves on Investment Trusts’ cost disclosures to bring them into line with the rules for Funds. This development will simplify the charging information that we provide to you. However, this piece of good news has been offset by ongoing uncertainty and confusion in the fund management industry about the FCA’s proposals on sustainability. The new regime focuses on how Environmental Social and Governance (‘ESG’) characteristics are classified within the funds available to retail investors. Due to be implemented in April 2025, some managers are choosing to opt out of the highly onerous badging regime entirely, removing the ‘sustainable’ label on many long running and highly respected funds. We await clarity from the FCA on the implications of the new rules for our own sustainable services. On a more upbeat note, Consumer Duty regulation is now incorporated into all areas of the finance industry and has genuinely been a force for the good. We are particularly pleased to note that it is being used to weed out poor market practice in a number of areas to promote transparency and clarify of service propositions. We also welcome FCA initiatives to encourage firms to provide additional support to clients who are suffering from ill health or impacted by life events such as bereavement.

Continuing to highlight the positives in 2024, the roll out of our new portal has been a great success. As part of our push to a more paperless approach and to address the ongoing threat posed to your cyber security, the rollout has been met with wide approval by users (once initial teething issues had been addressed, of course). I would continue to urge you all to use the new portal and the App on your phone to access snapshots of your portfolio. YourCAM also usefully provides the ability to view important documents, such as your quarterly valuations and tax packs. And, for those of you who are providing us with confidential documents including copies of LPAs, wills or bank statements, the ability to send encrypted messages keeps this information safe and secure. Unfortunately, we all continue to experience a significant number of email hacking incidents, and I encourage you to follow the highest possible standards of internet security and to make full use of the protections provided by exchanging information via the portal.

As you will be more than aware, we have had a difficult transition to the new IT system of our Custodian, PSL. I would like to apologise once again to you for issues that might have impacted the service levels that we provide.  I have personally been involved both in day-to-day problem solving at the most detailed level and in driving serious conversations with senior management at PSL. I want to assure you that we are taking firm action to rectify the situation going forward and look forward to returning to our usual high levels of service in this regard in 2025.

As we look forward to the new year ahead, we anticipate another 12 months of ‘expecting the unexpected’. Thank you again for your commitment to working with us to deal with the challenges that lie ahead and to keep us apprised of any change in your personal circumstances or concerns that you may have about your portfolio or broader financial situation.  It would only be right for me to also thank our wonderful staff, who have worked tirelessly this year with you and behind the scenes to continue the client centric culture and people focused ethos that we are proud to have created within our business. I fundamentally believe that we have a great team. Our close relationship with you and expertise in all areas of financial advice and investment management ensures that we are uniquely qualified to help families to navigate the ever-changing world. At a time of significant press negativity, I want to reassure you that we are confident in enabling you to achieve good outcomes whatever the markets, government or economy may have in store for us. I am delighted that you as our clients are on that journey with us.

Finally, I would like to thank you for taking time to complete the recent client feedback survey. This is invaluable for us in terms of developing our service and ensuring that we are stretching ourselves to reach the highest possible standards. Whilst we were proud of much of the feedback, we are far from complacent and will be setting out a new service agenda early next year to introduce changes that fully consider your ideas and opinions.  For me, the fact that so many of our new clients join us because of recommendations from our existing clients is the ultimate accolade. I am afraid that we increasingly meet unhappy clients who are with the big, ever changing, wealth firms who lack our personal approach and are constantly battling to satisfy external investors in their businesses. Unlike these huge businesses, our interests as shareholders and fellow clients are aligned with yours - please keep introducing your colleagues, contacts and friends to join the CAM family.

I hope to see many of you over the coming weeks but want to take this opportunity to thank you once again for your support and wish you and your families a happy and healthy Christmas and New Year.