The firm’s first deal of 2023 will help Redmill Advance continue towards its goal of becoming the “leading provider of regulatory qualification training and continued professional development services to the UK wealth management industry”.

Expert Pensions, which was created in 2012, is run by John Reynolds. It offers a range of training services for the advice and wealth management industry including a pension transfer specialist knowledge hub as well as Chartered Insurance Institute (CII) exam-prep e-learning and broader CPD online masterclasses.

Its client list includes True Potential, Attivo and Evelyn Partners.

The deal comes several weeks after Redmill Advance launched CPD monitoring and reporting software tool AdvanceCPD.

David Tait, managing director of Redmill Advance, said: “Adding the 12-year successful track record and comprehensive content library of Expert Pensions to Redmill Advance will ensure that the clients of both Redmill Advance and Expert Pensions will benefit from enhanced products and services.

“This acquisition demonstrates our commitment to scaling Redmill Advance through the strategic acquisition of other high-quality learning and development businesses. I very much look forward to working closely with John Reynolds and the team at Expert Pensions in the months ahead to continue to deliver excellence to our clients.”

Redmill Advance was acquired by Kinrock in August 2022 with the goal of strengthening and growing the business both organically and through acquisition.

The recording and reporting software links to the Redmill Advance learning-management system (LMS), automatically recording CPD across core learning, pension transfer specialist, Insurance Distribution Directive (IDD) and mortgage requirements. It also tracks statement of professional standing (SPS) renewal dates.

Redmill Advance said that AdvanceCPD’s dashboard provides users with an ‘at a glance’ view of all adviser CPD information and offers supervisors oversight of CPD needs across the business.

Senior managers can also use the tool to view the firm’s progress on regulatory requirements.

David Tait, managing director at Redmill, said: “The development of the CPD reporting and tracking tool was a natural evolution. We host over 350 training and CPD courses on our LMS and pushing this LMS data into a reporting tool that was modern, interactive and most importantly, easy to use for advisers, was important for us.”

Redmill Advance was launched in 2016 and has more than 10,000 service users. Its client list includes St James’s Place, Brown Shipley, Tavistock Investments and DeVere Group.

In September 2022, International Adviser announced professional education consolidator Kinrock acquired wealth management development services provider Redmill Advance for an undisclosed sum.

The deal was completed on 31 August 2022.

Redmill Advance is a provider of regulatory qualification training and continued professional development services to the UK wealth management industry. Its client list includes St James’s Place, Brown Shipley, Tavistock Investments and DeVere Group.

David Tait, founder of Redmill Advance, has taken an ownership stake in Kinrock as part of the deal and continues to be involved in the business. Tait will also continue as a strategic adviser to Kinrock as the business seeks further acquisitions as part of its own strategic growth plans.

Tait said: “Redmill Advance has gone from strength to strength over the years. Our client base has grown to include some of the largest wealth and asset management organisations in the UK and internationally.

“The acquisition of Redmill Advance by Kinrock marks a significant milestone in our company’s development and provides an opportunity to scale and grow the business across product, technology and people quickly and effectively, all of which will provide significant added value to our clients.

“Kinrock, led by Alex Arapoglou, share many of our own values. We believe in their vision and I look forward to watching the business thrive under new stewardship as I work closely with Alex on the next chapter of the company’s evolution.”

Kinrock was set up in 2022 to acquire controlling interests in professional education, development and training businesses.

The article captured succinctly the concept of looking beyond cost to see the value we derive from a product or service.

Obviously, this is sometimes easier said than done, particularly when, as a consumer, we may not be an expert in the area being discussed, and that’s why great guidance or advice is not only useful but, in many cases, essential.

It really got me thinking about financial services clients and particularly investment approaches.

As an industry, we have accepted that, over the long term, asset allocation in its broadest sense drives over 90% of portfolio returns. And that by extension, timing and security selection play important but more minor roles.

The provocative but actually quite reasonable question that may follow from this is given that clients pay an awful lot of money to investment managers, how can that possibly be justified if the above is true? Just think of the cost of some discretionary investment arrangements.

Fact finding and wording

The answer to this is centred on that that the client values beyond investment returns. Or more specifically, given the in-depth understanding we have achieved through the factfinding process, ensuring the investment approach brings value to the client based on their specific needs, objectives and desires.

Problems, should they occur, tend to arise in two places:

• The factfinding process has not gone to sufficient depth to justify the specific recommendations – i.e. a sufficiently deep conversation to understand the client’s values has not taken place or has not been documented; and
• The wording used in the suitability letter/report states generic features and/or reflects a house view rather than being specific to the individual.

It’s really the second of those I’ve personally seen most of, with either wording lifted straight from an investment brochure or paragraphs used that will ‘get through compliance checking’

Essentially, the secret to getting it right is to put the ‘house view’ down when writing suitability.

Less of – You said x. This investment approach meets that need by doing y. More of – You told me that being able to x is really important to you. To help you achieve that I have recommended y. Y will help you do more of x because…

It’s that last bit that gets missed most often. Framing the investment approach and product selection in a way that makes it clear how the specific features are not only generically speaking advantages but bring benefit to the client in terms of delivering the specific objective in a way that is reflective of their values is the bullseye.

The vast majority of us are ‘cost conscious’ when making a purchase – no one wants to pay more than they have to for a given product.

However, clearly understanding the specific, personal value that is provided by a product helps us reconcile the costs and appreciate the subjective utility that it delivers.

This article was written for International Adviser by Jon Dodson, technical and propositions manager at Redmill Advance.

We may see:

• Clients looking to retire later;
• An increase in partial or phased retirement;
• Changes to the order in which clients draw from assets; and
• Clients looking to other investments that don’t suffer the same legislative issues as pensions in terms of access.

Legislation

Regarding that last point, this may be either to supplement their income prior to accessing pensions at age 57 or for some it could mean using other investment solutions in the place of pensions provision.

This is also caveated with the fact that we can only deal with the legislative environment as it is known at the moment plus any changes that have been ‘inked in’.

Demographically speaking, we are living longer and longer so it’s fairly safe to assume that the change to NMPA is not the end of the changes we will see to the pensions landscape.

With regard to investing in other assets – this area of planning is, of course, complex and there are a number of factors that will determine the right blend of investments but central to all solutions are the following:

• How much do you want to/can afford to/need to pay in?
• How quickly and easily are you likely to need to take money out?
• How much can you afford to lose?
• What is your current tax position and what is it likely to be in the future?

Pretty much the backbone of all retirement planning. The list of options is understandably almost limitless so we’ll just look at some examples in brief here.

Isas

Isas have been a staple of retirement planning for many years now but the change to the NMPA may have just shifted them up a gear in terms of importance.

On their own, Isas and IRAs will not suit those that need to make a significant amount of saving over a short time (due to low albeit increasing limits) but they remain a solid part of most people’s retirement plans. Read more on gold ira here.

Isas remain largely unencumbered by access issues, accepting the conditions around Lifetime Isas, and they retain a favourable tax position – particularly with regard to inherited allowances.

Tax reducers

The inviting tax advantages of VCTs, EIS and SEIS have seen their popularity hugely increase over recent years but getting the time horizon for investment is critical.

Given that the tax advantages require funds to remain invested for three-to-five years, they are not a quick fix for plugging investment gaps when especially close to retirement.

What these vehicles do offer is an opportunity to invest much larger sums than those permitted into pensions but with a steep increase in risk.

In short, if the client is further away from retirement, looking to invest over £100,000 ($131,000, €118,000) and willing to lose some or all of their money to reap the tax benefits, this might be a good option.

Property

There is a range of ways that individuals can invest in property to help fund their retirement. With the exception of looking towards property funds and equity release, property investments tend to be burdened with liquidity issues.

Though the UK has a long-established love affair with property as an investment, not being able to find the right buyer at the right time can lead to frustrating liquidity issues – especially when your retirement plans hang on a sale.

Income streams from rental property in retirement, can be very healthy but void periods can be painful and lead to the need to change retirement plans.

The right property, or property-based investment, still seems a solid bet when it comes to retirement planning but its place really sits in a well-diversified retirement portfolio.

On its own, property investment isn’t quite the panacea that some clients may think it is.

Business investment

‘My business is my pension’ – we’ve all heard it and there are some definite advantages to considering committing further funding to a business, particularly from a tax perspective.

Because of business property relief, a sizeable operation may attract relief from inheritance tax without the problems of a lifetime allowance test.

Also, the amount that an individual can commit to a business is obviously unlimited based on their means – to that end, a business owner may feel more comfortable investing a larger some into an asset about which they have a degree of expertise.

That said, problems with liquidity and a lack of diversification remain – if an owner is looking to dispose of their business to fund a gap before they can access their pension, it needs to be planned and scoped several years in advance with the professional help of thewealthbuilder.club pensions ira advisors.

In short, we know the world of pension legislation never stays still but the recent changes may well have an impact on how clients will look to save for retirement.

Robust planning, at the earliest possible point, is the secret to getting the best outcome.

This article was written for International Adviser by Jon Dodson, technical and propositions manager at Redmill Advance.