Simon Bonnett has been appointed a Director and I am delighted he has accepted our invitation to join the Board which brings its strength up to four, including Brian Gant – our non-executive Chairman. Simon joined Fiducia in 2012 following a successful career in the City with Duncan Lawrie and Arbuthnot Latham among others, and I am certain he will make a significant contribution to the future success of Fiducia.
James Daley has passed Part 1 of the Chartered Financial Analyst examination, the international gold standard for fund managers and analysts. This is a due reward for the many hours of study he committed himself to last year. The exam itself is an all-day event and the pass rate for the overall qualification is not much more than 50%. Well done, James, congratulations!
At the end of last year Sarah Hunter joined as the third member of our Investment Team. Sarah graduated from the University of Essex with a First Class Honours Degree in Business Management and in what is a very short time has impressed us all with the progress she has made.
Paul Barker is continuing to speed through his exams and is well on the way to achieving Diploma status in what will be a remarkably short period of time.
Emily Bowman has left after spending nearly three years with Fiducia. She was offered the opportunity to become a full-time gymnastics coach, which was always her dream. Obviously, she left with our very best wishes for her new career.
With the continued growth of the business, the team now numbers seventeen, we have taken a lease on half of the third office at the Business Centre. This is now home to the Accounts Team, Paula and Jane, and has enabled the advisers to have their own space. The main office is occupied by the Investment Team, the Paraplanners and the Client Services Team, with some space for further growth.
At the very beginning of the New Year client funds passed the £100m mark, which was one of our business targets for 2014. The target for 2015 is the successful roll out of our new discretionary management service, more of which is to follow.
John Millican
Dedham, March 2015