Award-winning firm of Chartered Financial Planners Informed Choice is pleased to report another record year for the business.
In the 2010/11 company year which ended today, Informed Choice has grown its revenue by 57% to over £1 million.
In a year which has seen a significant investment in infrastructure and resources to support further growth in the future, net profits have increased by 33% compared to the previous year.
Informed Choice managing director Martin Bamford commented on the results:
“It is a testament to the quality of our team and client proposition that we have been able to build on what was our best ever company year to deliver another outstanding set of results this year.
“The work we have completed to reposition our business ahead of the Retail Distribution Review has enabled us to focus on growing the business. The goal now is to continue with our strategy to become the advisers of choice for affluent and high net worth investors in Surrey.”
During the past twelve months, Informed Choice has been awarded the Gold Standard for Independent Financial Advice at the Gold Standard Awards 2010. They were named Best IFA Firm at the Unbiased.co.uk Media IFA of the Year Awards 2011 and awarded Best IFA Website at the Professional Adviser Awards 2011.
Informed Choice now has a team of six Financial Planners, with three of these holding the Chartered Financial Planner and Certified Financial Planner (CFP) professional designations.
Martin continues:
“We are witnessing a growing demand from individuals, trustees and business owners for professional independent financial advice from highly qualified and experienced Financial Planners on a fee-charging basis.
“The strength of our team-based approach to the delivery of advice and service, our robust investment advice process and client communications have all set us apart from the competition and allowed us to become one of the largest financial planning firms in Surrey over the past couple of years.”
Informed Choice is continuing to grow organically at a steady pace, with the recruitment of one more Financial Planner scheduled for this year and another in the early part of 2012.
Chartered Financial Planner Andrew Neligan was recently appointed as Financial Planning Director to help steer the direction of the Financial Planning proposition at Informed Choice, with Lizanne Doyle being promoted to Client Services Manager to manage the administration function of the business.
Executive Director Nick Bamford commented: “Andrew and Lizanne will both become shareholders in the business at the start of next year, as part of our strategy to put in place a long-term succession plan for the current business owners.
“We have always believed that a valuable IFA business has four main attributes, which are people, brand, systems and processes, and assets under management. As we continue to grow the business, we will focus on these four factors and our strategic roadmap measures progress against each of these.”
The recruitment of three new Financial Planners last year has seen the assets under management at Informed Choice grow from £70 million to over £100 million. Informed Choice now works with 470 active clients, providing comprehensive annual review reports and meetings to remain up to date with changing circumstances and objectives.
Nick continued: “One of our biggest projects this year is the implementation of a new back office system, supplied by Avelo. This is already improving the delivery of review reporting to our clients and the efficiency of this reporting, allowing us to spend more time with our clients which is what they really value.
“We also look forward to relaunching our popular website later this year, which will include additional functionality to enable clients to view their portfolios online.
The future looks bright for Informed Choice, with a realistic business plan to achieve at least 20% annual growth over the next two years, no debt and an RDR-ready business model.
