With 38 years of experience in financial planning and extensive qualifications in pensions, investments, and protection arrangements, he offers significant technical and practical expertise in all aspects of financial planning. In addition to providing effective financial advice, Wicks (pictured) said in the statement today (21 August) that his aim is always to help clients live their best lives, both now and in the future.

Wicks has been a self-employed financial adviser based in Dubai for the past 15 years. He was also managing director Holborn Assets UK from November 2014 to October 2023.

Wicks said: “Hoxton is an amazingly dynamic company under the inspired leadership of Chris Ball, who I first met over a decade ago and have followed ever since.

“It provides an unparalleled range of services and jurisdictions for its globally mobile clients. I am excited to be joining because it will provide the best possible environment for me to continue to put my clients first and achieve excellent results for them.”

Chris Ball, managing partner at Hoxton Capital Management, said: “As a company, first and foremost, we always want to provide clients with the highest levels of service, wherever in the world they happen to be living. I have seen first-hand over many years Chris’s experience, expertise and real commitment to doing the best for his clients, so it’s a perfect match. We’re really looking forward to having him on-board.”

The business specialises in pensions, retirement planning, providing investment advice, insurance and protection cover, as well as wealth preservation and asset management. The company also provides mortgage advice, a will writing service, and business financial advice and planning.

The earlier three acquisitions this year were of Dudley-based Alpha Financial Services, Guildford-based Bartholomew Financial Planning, and Devine Financial Management, a financial advisory firm based in Southend and London.

Thomas Maddison, acquisitions director at Hoxton Capital Management, said: “The acquisition of Chequer provides us with an opportunity to enhance our local presence within St Albans by adding an additional 80 households to our client base.

“Chequer is an independent firm that shares significant cultural and value synergies with Hoxton. Each client will benefit from a dedicated team comprising an adviser, paraplanner, and administrator. Additionally, clients will have the option to maintain continuity by attending their annual review meetings in our city centre office.”

Hoxton Capital Management recently announced it had reached $2bn (USD) assets under management (AUM) a 30% year-on-year increase.

It now employs 300 staff worldwide with offices in the UK, UAE, USA, Australia, South Africa and in Europe.

Hoxton Capital Management, which now has 300 employees across six global offices in the UK, Australia, the United States, the UAE, and Europe, Hoxton specialises in financial services for primarily international clients and has recently hit its $2bn AUM milestone and has made its third acquisition in as many months.

“There is no question that the tech power of our business internally and externally is a key factor in growth,” explains Mansel Oliver, pictured above, CTO, Hoxton Capital Management.

“Clients are attracted by our tech proposition, and we’ve been able to seamlessly on board the businesses we have acquired by virtue of our internal technology. It’s tech that’s really driving the company’s growth.”

“Technology is also central to our recruitment strategy,” continues Oliver. “The next generation of financial advisors want to be at the
cutting edge of their profession and that means not only being able to use the latest technology in their own roles but also being able to
offer it as a service to their clients as well.”

Client interest has certainly been at the fore. 4200 Hoxton Capital Management clients around the world have already downloaded and are using the Hoxton Wealth App that it launched in March.

Initial responses from clients using the app include “I like the way it pulls the asset information across” (Kenneth) and “Very easy to use and intuitive -interesting to see quickly the impact of interest rates and growth rates etc.” (John).

The Hoxton Wealth app offers users free, real-time access to their entire net worth on their mobile phone wherever they are in the world.
It is also not restricted to existing Hoxton clients. The app takes advantage of open banking protocols so that users can have access to all their assets in one place. They can be aggregated and collated, including bank accounts, brokerage, pension and cash accounts from most countries in the world.

Users can also add the value of static property assets as well as having a live tracker for stocks, shares and crypto assets. They can also bring in data on financial liabilities including credit cards and mortgages, creating a genuine one-stop shop for individuals to see all they have in one place. The platform is available in web and mobile formats.

The app’s WealthFlow feature also enables users to envision their financial future by providing insights into when they might achieve
financial freedom. It enables people to confidently plan for the lifestyle they desire. By tracking assets, including investments, vehicles, properties, and custom assets, WealthFlow can help ensure that hard-earned funds are passed down seamlessly to future generations.

“The fact that so many of our clients have now moved over to using the app shows that technology is not only required or appreciated, but also actually being used and is, therefore, further driving the growth of the company,” Oliver concludes.

The Hoxton Wealth App featuring WealthFlow can be downloaded from all major app stores, including Google Play and the Apple App Store, and is also available online at hoxtoncapital.com/hoxton-wealth-app/.

Andrew Russell has been appointed as group chief executive and managing director of the company, effective immediately.

Russell has been interim chief executive since 19 June 2023 while the board undertook a global external executive search for a permanent chief executive.

He replaces Libby Roy, who stepped down as chief executive and managing director on 19 June 2023.

Hoxton Capital Management

The advice group has named Matt Tailford as commercial director, a role he will take up at the firm’s Dubai office.

Tailford was most recently at Sovereign Group, where he was director of Sovereign Wealth in Dubai.

State Street

Julian Salisbury will join the company as partner and co-chief investment officer in 2024.

He is currently Goldman Sachs Asset and Wealth Management chief investment officer.

Canada Life Asset Management

The asset manager has appointed Paul Pugh as head of strategic alliances to strengthen its distribution team.

Pugh brings more than 25 years’ worth of experience to his new role, having previously worked as head of strategic partnerships at AJ Bell and having held similar positions at Legal & General Investment Management and Premier Asset Management.

Janus Henderson

The global asset manager has named Mike Haslam as director of sales enablement.

Haslam joins Janus Henderson from Barclays Wealth, where he spent the last 13 years and was responsible for promoting third party mutual fund offerings, ETFs and in-house funds across fixed interest, equity and commodity funds to bankers across the UK and EMEA.

Quilter Investors

The multi-asset investment business of Quilter has enhanced its responsible investment team with two hires.

Jonathan De Pasquallie has joined as a responsible investment analyst from KPMG in the Crown Dependencies, where he provided investors with environmental, social and governance (ESG) due diligence as well as assisting them with approaches to climate risk and decarbonisation strategies.

Meanwhile, Chris Wu has joined the business as a responsible investment quantitative analyst. Wu was most recently a research officer at the London School of Economics and has a decade of experience in applied data science.

Boston Multi Family Office

Amanda Potter has been promoted to director – risk and compliance, having previously held the position of head of Rrisk and compliance.

Lisa Whear now steps into the role of senior manager – statutory.

She joined Boston in 2020 as part of the IQE acquisition.

Spring Capital Partners

The independent funds distribution partner to boutique asset managers has appointed Peter Slack to the position of regional sales manager.

Based in Manchester, Slack joins Spring Capital from T Rowe Price, where he worked for seven years, with responsibility for developing relationships with discretionary fund managers and investment intermediaries in the north of England and Ireland; he had earlier been responsible for Scotland, the Isle of Man, and Northern Ireland.

Alexforbes Offshore

Alexis Leech has been promoted to director of client services and new business enablement.

She has built her career over 20 years with Alexforbes where she started as an accounts administrator. She has worked in a variety of roles and developed her skillset significantly during that time from finance to pension administration, and latterly client servicing, where she has held senior management positions.

This comes almost a year after International Adviser exclusively revealed that Hoxton had been given conditional approval for a licence in Cyprus.

The firm received the licence on 18 July 2023. Hoxton Capital Management undertook the EU licensing project following the UK’s exit from the EU.

Chris Ball, managing partner of Hoxton Capital Management, said: “This is a crucial step and milestone for the growth of our EU business, and also the latest display of our continued commitment to bringing our services and expertise to expatriate investors across the globe.

“The significant expat population in the EU deserves to have available high-quality, relevant, tailored advice, and this development will allow us to expand our operations to meet the demand that we know is present.

“A huge amount of hard work from the Hoxton team has made this happen, and this announcement is a testament to their efforts. Above all else, I’d like to thank all of those clients in Europe who have chosen to work with us as their specialist adviser and look forward to helping many more people across this market in the coming years.”

The firm announced in March 2023 that it had reached £1bn ($1.3bn, €1.16bn) in assets under management.