An update from our Chief Executive, Nick Coghill

We are approaching the summer months, lost in a maelstrom of sporting events from the Euros through Wimbledon to the Summer Olympics in Paris. In midst of this athletic activity, we face elections at home, in Europe and further afield. At a time when there is so much external noise, I wanted to take a step back and share with you my thoughts on the last few months and the rest of the year and how this impacts your experience as a client of CAM.

Firstly, I would like to thank you all for your continued support as we navigate challenging markets, shrouded in an uncertain geopolitical climate. The road is never smooth and this has been particularly evident over the last few years. I want to reassure you that we remain committed to looking after the wealth of you and your families as we have always done. We will not get caught up in short term panic or knee jerk decisions and continue to look at long term goals, whether it be focusing on financial planning or running your portfolio. The UK elections will, without doubt, throw up some opportunities as well as delivering challenges in July. We will, as always, ensure that we digest the news, consider the options and advise you of any areas that will necessitate careful thought or consideration. We are confident in the abilities of our highly experienced team to navigate the outcome of any changes to policies to ensure you and your family’s wealth is future proofed.

We continue to run the business as we have always intended, delivering a personal service and building on the trust that develops over years to create long term relationships. We are delighted in the growth of new clients and families who look to us as a trusted adviser, friend and, more importantly, a business that is not driven by external influences such as we have seen with many of our peers. I fundamentally continue to believe that staff and family-owned businesses are far more aligned with managing the financial goals and wealth of clients rather than large conglomerates, formed by consolidators, often backed by short term private equity capital. Regulatory and cost pressures exist across all businesses, and we will always have areas that we need to focus on to improve the client experience and the way we run the business. I have pride in being able to take a pragmatic long-term view and not being forced into short term corporate decisions. Our commitment is to support you and your family in the long term.

In terms of activity in the past few months, as many of you are aware, our custodian, Platform Securities (‘PSL’) rolled out a new front office system. We moved onto using this system to manage portfolios in November. The new technology offers significant improvements to us in terms of supporting the management and administration of portfolios, meaning that we can spend more time focusing on our relationship with you. However, the transition to using the system has not been as smooth as we had hoped. The teams have been working incredibly hard behind the scenes to minimise disruption to you and hope to be back to a more ‘business as usual’ environment come the Summer months.

You should shortly be receiving your annual tax packs either via the portal or in hard copy. There is a slight change to the format for this year only, as a result of the change in our administration system in October. This means that you will receive your Capital Gains statement in one report. Separately, your Consolidated Tax Certificate will be sent in two reports. The first report will comprise of information for your taxable accounts from the period April 2023 up to October 2023 and the second for your accounts for the period from October 2023 up to April 2024.  All future tax reporting will revert to a single report for your Consolidated Tax Certificate.

On a positive note, we have started to roll out our new Client Portal and mobile phone App. This offers increased functionality, improvements to how you can view your portfolios and personal details, together with the ability to communicate with us in a fully encrypted environment. I am delighted with how many of you are embracing the new portal together with both the constructive and positive feedback you have given. My intention is that by the end of July all clients who are able to use the new Portal will have been provided with access and any support that is needed to get to grips with it. This will enable us to use the portal to deliver all valuations and updates in a secure and easy format. Moving towards a paperless approach is also good for environmental, record keeping and security reasons.

We have continued to improve our website with many more features and articles ranging from financial wellbeing through to technological security and AI. I encourage you to have a look at these short videos and articles. Please also let us know if there are other areas you would like us to cover in future materials. One area that I am keen to investigate is the area of promoting financial knowledge amongst the younger generation and hosting an event with your children / grand children to help educate them once they take steps in the world of adulthood from the age of 18. This is not covered by many schools for children and is arguably more important today than ever, when the FCA tell us that online influencers are providing much of the financial education for our young people. I would love to hear your thoughts on whether you would support such an event.

It has been incredible to see and speak to so many of you in person at some of our client events over the last few months and it really does further the strong personal links that I believe are fundamental to working with you and your families in the present and the future.

I would like to take this opportunity to say once again that it is a privilege for myself and our staff to know and work with you. I also want to ensure that you know that I constantly challenge how we do things and your feedback either to me personally or to the teams that look after you continues to be a big driver in how I want us to adapt and improve. Regardless of the nature of your feedback, please do keep it coming. You currently have a further opportunity to provide your input with our annual client survey. Please do take time to fill this out; we will make a charity donation for each entry that we receive and you may win a Fortnum’s hamper.

I wish you all a happy Summer, with the promise of sunshine and sporting fixtures to come and I look forward to seeing you all soon.