Yes, indeed, dear TRAPPIST, welcome back to what many people are calling episode 81 of the real advisor podcast, T, R, A, P, my name is Lincoln Lincoln, and joining me as ever in the digital studio of doom, are the three other Horsemen of
the Apocalypse. Alan, the storyteller, Smith and the ultra heart and della voce Carl the voice widger, gentlemen, we have a show packed full of absolutely nothing, so let's start unpacking it straight away with another high energy review, read out by my very good friend the right hon. Mr. Andrew Usain Hart,
thank you very much. Nicholas, welcome everybody. This review is a long one, but a good one from Aaron O'Neill entitled top draw five stars. Stumbled upon this podcast by a stroke of luck a few months back on life, talk, Facebook, forum, and it's been an it's been incredible for me as a bit of context, I'm a 29 year old, IFA just closing in on the first
year in the role. I went through the traditional route, Administrator, power planner, now an advisor, collecting my qualifications early in the journey of all the financial advice related content, I've found this the best by far. The
conversation is engaging. It's easy to listen to fingers on the pulse, always relevant, and there's even a few chuckles along the way, I find myself relating to and agreeing with a lot of what is said in the show, as well as challenging my own thoughts at times, more than anything, it makes me excited and proud to be part of the next wave, next generation of planners coming through. You've been recommended to all my colleagues and any of my network
with two ears that work. Keep up the good work and keep inspiring.
Aaron. Back to you. Nicholas, wow.
Aaron Neil, thank you very much. That is lovely. That is lovely. Yes, please do keep reviews coming
in. Yeah, just saying, Are we just about keeping up to date? We're sort of limping in with one or two date now, there's a few more come in.
No, we're not. Yeah, we've, we've got a few more in the bag now, one every two weeks. But please do keep them coming it helps in the rankings and all that sort of stuff. But we're over the desk. Over the desperate stage. We've got three or four in the bag Alan. We're always in a desperate stage, just different stages, correctly,
speaking, speaking of desperate, what's going on with the eight there behind you? Nick, yes.
For those listening, listening to this, not viewing it, this might be the darkest 30 seconds. You're like, that's the best I can do. It's two donuts on top of each other.
Yeah, it's really art. Was you were big on art in school? I'd say, Were you?
I am not an artistic person. I'm an audio person. You didn't do our O level, did you?
I didn't know after your time. Weren't they?
One weakness? Nick, isn't it you want and only
is my one weakness is drawing numbers on witness a one at everything else, yeah, but I'll put a TNC plan into and again that okay, TRAPPIST, let's put in a topical timestamp on this episode 81 of the real advisor podcast with some topical tidbits I'm going to lead off. We've got exciting news with trap we're kind of expanding it out. We are entering into a formal partnership with uh, with an up and coming fund group who are just trying to get assets under management. They're quite a
small operation. They're called Vanguard, um, that's exciting. We'll have more to talk about that in the coming months, but we do some content with them for you guys and girls. And we've also got some good speakers coming on to trap and not every, not every episode, because we know that really, you tune in to
hear us jabronis talk. But we have got some good people, if I say names like Paul armson, Pete, Matthew Brett Davidson, Rory Sutherland, so some really interesting, interesting guys and girls actually coming on the show in the coming months. So that's all good stuff, and we might even have, heaven forbid, a venue for trap 26 storyteller, you went to the venue for a punk gig last week. How do they this is all new to us, by the way, TRAPPIST, whatever Smith, he says, Now is news to us. How was it?
It was fine, that's how I say, yeah. Well, I went. It's, it's, it's a great location. The venue, it's very central London. It's close to that little it's like the triangle. It's where dimensionals office is. Andy's held his events the Royal College. So it's kind of that central London, Great Portland Street, very easy to get to for everyone, lots of sort of establishments nearby for early for lunches or drinks or what
have you. So I went along. Yeah, I went along to see an old punk band reminiscing of my early days on
on Saturday night just passed and and the venue was very good. It was just thought, you know, obviously, for a concert, it's all standing only in this place, and we're going to have, obviously, some seating arrangements. But good bar, well stocked. Bar, good service. No complaints. So so far, so good. Looks like I do have a venue, and we'll be having a live event in the spring.
And the event date is Wednesday, the 13th of May, dear TRAPPIST, so just put that in your your diaries, please, and in due course, we'll probably get we'll probably get an email out to remind you and with a link about. The agenda and everything else, but the place is literally you stumble out of good street. Is it goose Street, Portland Street, great, great Porter Street, Chief
station. It's literally there. I mean, it's a couple of pubs nearby as well, which has nothing to do with a choice of venue, just coincidental,
okay, and the venue doesn't close very early, because Alan sent us an update at 1:57am
message, and deleted it as well, which is
always, yeah, there are this morning, yeah, no, it was not, was it
that night? And he Yeah, and he got the headlines name wrong, so it shows how much of a die hard fan he is for Becky. Yeah.
Interesting. That's another story for another time.
Okay, so the CI sissy, I think so we say you went Ultra to their recent conference down in down in Slough, actually, Windsor,
yes, I did. You boys were at the conference with me last year in Manchester, I believe, but you did, of course, you were, you don't rock up unless your keynote. So it was in Windsor this year, two day conference, Thursday and Friday last week. It was, it was brilliant. It was quite close for me. It's about 45 minute drive. There was lots of old friends, lots of new friends. Great networking. The content was good. The hotel was
enormous. It took about 10 minutes to walk to your room, and everyone was getting lost, but that's a minor point. And in the evening, we had the awards. Slightly annoying that they didn't do it as black tie, and they sort of it was lounge suit, so everyone's a bit confused about what to wear, but I went rogue. I went black tie. You know, getting everyone together, staying overnight, three course meal, dancing, just have it. Black Tie. Organizers, that's my
recommendation. Anyway, the awards that night, I'm going to read some of the winners. A para planner of the year was David Cole, unity, power planning. Next up is CFP professional of the year, Nicola Ellis from Wellington wealth, who is an amazing planner. Lots of fun with her and her sister.
Finally, doesn't
sounds a bit dodgy, but we're the right. Laughed Paul, the Paul lethridge award financial planning future leader was Peter still worth of still worth wealth. And the good egg was Quentin McCormack of verso wealth. And finally, Keith button and the gang boost financial were the accredited firm of the year. So they're the notable awards for that night. Yeah, it was decent. There was a couple of planners that came over from Ireland who Carl knew. So, yeah, it's a bit of an
international delegate list. So hopefully you boys are coming to the event next year. There were loads of Trappists there speaking very highly of myself, and, you know, you guys got a mention. Obviously, it was, it was it was good laugh. It was good laugh. Well worth the time. What was the
standout talk or speech that you attended? I
like to talk by a guy called Lee Warren, who you may have seen before. He's a very well polished presenter. He's an ex magician, but he talks about all the stuff that I'm interested, you know, framing and pitching and using odd numbers when you're quoting prices. A lot of good live stories. It's picked up, you know, just just from observing, observing the world. He was good. Keith button did a good talk. Was quite a quite a brave talk, where he allows the audience to pick the subjects.
So he starts off with, I don't know, 15 subjects the audience picked via mementi or some, you know, online system. And then he, on the fly, does different subjects. That's quite a good idea. Abraham had a Oxford style debate that, unfortunately, I didn't see because I was somewhere else, that I apparently was great. But I'm going to watch that on video.
There was, it was just, it was just a good mix, some good, quite a few exhibitors that we all know, the usual faces and a lot of, as I say, new people. It's always good to see people that you know, but it's great to, you know, meet, meet new people. A lot of people there are clients of mine via hum premium. So it's always good to get, you know, feedback from them. Yeah, it was good. So hopefully you boys are there next year, representing out of
the professional bodies. It's one of the biggest events, and it's an overnight event, which is good and bad, but if you can make the time well worth visiting, so hopefully we'll see you boys there next year.
Okay, all right, okay. Now, one of us has been abroad recently. You've been beer festival in storyteller? Well, not really. That was just an added bonus. There's a brief back. Yeah. Air storage of this very brief. Keep it brief. I Some months ago, I was contacted by the German headquarters of dimensional fund advisors. Oh, here we go. That's been a while. It's been a while. I was trying to, keep trying to tee it up there for you. Got there in the end. You haven't used that one
for a while. Anyway, I was contacted a few months ago by my good friend Lucas Schneider, who heads up the operation for dimensional fund advisors based in Berlin, and he said to me, would you like to come over to speak at our well, at a financial planning conference that is being held in Munich and I said, taking the advice of my dear friend Andrew Hart into account, I politely declined, because Andy said once he said, when you're trying to get famous, you say yes to everything, but when you get
Famous, you say no to everything, right? Mr. Hart, it's what Warren Buffett
says, Not Me, Jesus Christ, right?
So I said, I'm really busy.
Very kind offer, but I'm probably going to have to say no on this occasion. He said, just before you say no, there is one extra thing I've got to throw into the mix. We're holding the conference during the Oktoberfest in Munich, and we've got top, top tickets for the best tent at the Oktoberfest, and we can roll that in as well. You can come along to Oktoberfest
more depth in a puddle. So I reflected long and hard and and point five of a second afterwards, I said, Yeah, I'm in. So last week, my my colleague, Charles and I went across to Munich. We also had to work this out, because they had tickets for Oktoberfest on the Monday evening. And he said, and we can, we're going to work out the conference is either going to be on the Tuesday or the Wednesday morning, starting at 8am which day would you prefer? So just run that by me again, Monday night.
What did you do on Tuesday? Just, just mull around the city.
Yeah, at leisure. It was, yeah, just a bit of sightseeing, a bit of, you know, preparing, preparing, and so and then so anyway, that was, fact, if you've ever gone, Oktoberfest is one of these events that is kind of always on my bucket list or something to do. A must get around to going there. And the years go past, you never end up going. So it was a good opportunity to get across there. It was fun. I mean, you can't imagine the scale of it. I don't
know how many people were. There was just absolutely massive. 1000, hundreds of 1000s of people.
We did the right thing. You can the, there's lots of shops in Munich where you can rent out the lederhosen. You can get, you can rent out these leather shorts and a little hat and everything. So when enrollment all the rest of it, when in Munich. So Charles and I got fully kitted out in our German lederhosen. And you didn't send
us that picture. Yeah,
just deleted it automatically. It was too much. It wasn't, I didn't, yeah, it was it, I'll set I'll send you more later. Andy, if you really keep my knees,
yeah, traditional
bavarian costume, it was, and I'm glad we did, actually, because almost everyone was dressed appropriately in their local dress. And it was, that was, it was great, really well hosted,
but on a shout out to Dirk and Roman, who are financial planners there in Munich, and they've also do various other things, but they hosted the event at the Oktoberfest. Really good fun. And yeah, I know. So on Wednesday, we pitched up and did this talk. It was basically, it was the the Germans had the pleasure of Charles and I for the entire day presenting to them from kind of nine ish in the morning all the way through to about five. Kind of workshop style, went through the whole
process. What's quite interesting is you go to other countries, is to find that kind of where they are in their financial planning journey, and experience it fair to say, continental Europe. Germany. There is a kind of aspiring financial planning community, but it's very small at this stage. It is like a lot of Europe. It's dominated by big banks and selling packaged products. They've still got commission. Their commission dominates the very concept of proper full fat financial
planning. Is very rare indeed. But of course, you always get these. I remember going to the Netherlands years ago as well, and you always get these sort of early cohorts who are kind of interested in this stuff. Often breakaways. There's people who've been at banks and what have you want to set up their own independent businesses.
Independent Businesses, do proper financial planning and understand, kind of from the UK, because we are definitely a few years ahead of them, maybe five to 10 years ahead in our own journey. So they're, you know, like, like, you go to these other other countries, it's, you know, they're really engaged, really enthusiastic. Everything you say to them is kind of new, the first time. They've heard it, which is, do you know good to a cis I conference? To be fair, you know that you've heard
a lot of this. Good to get, get reminders, but if you're hearing it for the first time, it's quite interesting. And I want to do a special shout out now to my new friend Lewis, Lewis Klinger, who's a young German advisor. And he was very keen to come up to me early stage and say, Alan, I'm a Trappist. I'm a Trappist. He said, I've been listening. He said, I just came across Trapp a
few months ago. He goes running, listens to trap and he's that, he's, I think he's up to 40 episodes now in this short space of time. He said, really loved it. And obviously this, they speak fluent English, which helps. But he was just saying, sometimes I'm, you know, going on, jogging around, running around, and just laughing my head off at some of this
nonsense that we talk about. So Lewis is a great guy, and so I just wanted to do a shout out to him, as I say, to to the and also to the guys at dimensional, to
to Alan, Alan horovic, and the guy I've just mentioned as well, whose name I've forgotten.
Hopefully you've got a few of those names wrong, and you're doing apology next week.
I, but I, but I'm pleased to report I'm continuing my reputation as an international keynote speaker. Okay. Anyway, it was fine. Good, good, good. Well done. Well done. Spreading the trap brand on the on the consonant.
When I come back in a future life, I'm gonna come back and start a platform that loses shitloads of money, and then I'm gonna sell it for shitloads
of money. Ultra This is the story of the nutmeg platform, rebranding to JP Morgan, personal investing. There's a few moving parts for this. I'll keep it high level. So it got bought in 2021 for a reported 700 million, which seems like a punchy number, but for JP Morgan, let's be honest, it's it's a rounding error. So they bought a huge amount of clients and distribution in the UK. They've also got Chase Bank, and they're sort of trying to sort of have a holistic approach for
people's money. The latest numbers have come out.
They are losing a lot of money. The turnover of nutmeg is, keep it simple, 40 million. The costs are 80 million. I'm just rounding this up so they're losing 40 million a year. So in the in the business world, this is called selling pound coins for 50 P very unsustainable. Long term, they've got 110 million pounds of cash. I think they've got 265,000 clients or something, and they look after quite a small amount. I think it's around about 8 billion.
Maybe there's a link in the in the docket, or the slate, as we're leaving it. So all the things are there. Holly McKay. McKay has done a good article on it in professional advisor. She's calling this the death of the nutmeg brand, but the death of robo advisor, as in, Robo advice. Thought it was going to disrupt everything, replace the humans. Financial Advisors are gone. None of this has
transpired. The question is, what is J What are JP Morgan going to do to make this a profitable business, because they can't continue doing what they're doing.
So that's
that Andy, can I? Can I just it was bought for 700 million.
Yeah, 700 sorry. Lee bought for seven there are 100 million, and it lost money every year,
but the turnover so, so I can guess that even if it was losing money, it might be okay, well, it will make money at some stage. But the turnover was, it's 40 million now. So it was probably
now. So it might have been, as a guesstimate, maybe 25 million. Currently, they have eight and a half billion AUM with 265,000 clients. So the average AUM, is about 32,000 pounds. Horrible value, high admin, yeah.
X on turnover. X on turnover, yeah.
And that balance sheet, which is on company's house, is horrendous in terms of, you know, the balance
sheet, they've got a lot of cash, Nick, they've got 110 million in 10 million in cash. They've got, they've got a lot of firing power to do some great things. Let's just see potentially, what they do.
I mean, I briefly read the article that the Aum, which is the driver of their revenue, has increased a lot in the last few years. Didn't they buy it at 4 billion, when it was 4 billion aum? Well, it's easy.
Aum, if you're buying it, I guess, and the
markets are going one way, yeah, yeah, I don't know whether, but new clients, I mean, they, yeah, they were the poster boys.
I think they got very lucky finding JP Morgan, yeah, deep pockets and wanting to. To connect their overall assets in the UK, as in Chase Bank, we need an investment arm, so they wrote a punchy check. Yeah, it's interesting to see how they're going to monetize this business. That is the challenge. They're going to add more services. I think they've got private client managers for individuals that have got over 250,000 do they
need that? What they're going to be doing selling them more stuff to try and become more profitable.
I don't some somebody with a bank has just worked out, we cross sell them a lot of other services and get them to do retail banking or whatever.
Somebody who signed off on a tax on turnover has lost their job. Yeah, because that makes, no matter what spreadsheet you're looking at that that makes no sense. And whoever owned it and took 700 million fair play, I
think I can be wrong, but I think the biggest shareholder wants a bigger shareholder. At the time they sold was Schroeder's, yeah, because they invested a load of money leading up to it, so they would, I think they were delighted. Off we wrote that,
really, for that thing, Jesus,
he just, is this, this rinse and repeat, isn't it? We see this. We see that some examples of these massive companies, where 700 million, as you said, Ultra is a drop in the ocean, but it is, to me, that's negligent. If you're a shareholder in JP, Morgan, that's just bloody negligence, writing off their their advice, no
matter who you are, 700 million is not a drop in the ocean, no matter who you are. That's that's mega, mega money
we've talked about in the past. If the mighty Vanguard with whatever they've got 10 trillion, Aum, can't make a success of this BTC, Robo, semi digital advisor experience then, yeah. Good luck everyone else. Good luck with everyone else trying to make it a profitable,
crazy financial planning is a luxury product, and it needs to be paid for accordingly. It's very hard to scale on small numbers.
I'll give a quick shout
out to TRAPPIST David Hearn, good friend of the show, who brought that story to my attention as well. On Twitter. He's on Twitter as at Don't delay. And he's also a man who does K ultra marathons and gets through them the poor. So by listening to trap as I think you said, Smith is torture upon torture, yeah, but informs a torture for the price of one. He was
cancels itself out. Then he was also at the CISI conference bumped into him. Yeah, he's always got great stuff to share online. So if you don't follow him, do follow him. Don't delay great, great Twitter handle.
Okay, let's move on, because we're at already 23 minutes in. We're only halfway through the slate. Watch. Give us some good news from across the Irish Sea.
Yeah, just developing from the last episode, the arena capital debacle, has got a lot of media attention, actually, over the last couple of weeks, and I'm glad it has, because obviously these things are going to be brought in front of investors and hopefully warn them against it. But I was, I was smiling at a couple of the commentary bits in the newspapers. One of them, they definitely didn't, but it sounded like a transcript of what I had said in the in the
last podcast. But then there was a couple of editorial pieces, and they were calling for, you know, the central bank to take action and blah, blah, blah. So I said I was reminded of an article or an interview I did with the currency in 2023 and I said, I'm going to read that article again. So I did read the
article again. Now I got, if you remember, dogs abuse for this article, because the headline said, most financial advisors are untrustworthy, which was not what I said, but I did say it in context of people, financial advisors, selling loan notes. So I said it in the context of a much larger conversation. And of course, the guy made that the headline of the article, which I just I was buried for it, right? And I couldn't say that. I didn't say it because I did say it in the context of the
overall, overall interview. But my whole point in that interview was, there was, there was two main points. And number one was, these loan notes are not fit for purpose, so the folks out there shouting and roaring now, after the horse has absolutely bolted and people have lost a whole lot of money in a number of different investment loan notes that have gone pear shaped.
Well, this was a problem
five, six years ago. I wasn't even early in 2023 talking about it. So on the one hand, it's good that this has been brought into kind of mainstream media now, because investors will be forewarned. But on the other hand, the people who have the power within the media, you know, I feel, were sadly lacking over the last few years, and it's a salacious story. Now, and that's what will
get the headlines. But really, that hasn't done anything or will do nothing to well, it'll do absolutely nothing to protect the people who have lost their money in these low note investments. So yeah, I suppose I was kind of felt a little bit of vindication, because probably I was a little bit polarized at the time. I remember telling you guys I read it on holidays, on a beach and in California going Jesus Christ, and subsequently turned my phone off for the rest of the holiday because I knew
what was coming. But anyway, yeah,
Todd, nobody likes the person who says I told you so, but sometimes it's justified to say I did tell you so and you, I'm just wondering, are you going to leverage this at all, Carl, because you could, you know, with the, with the media. So listen, I was talking about, you know, do you want to talk in few minutes? I was talking about this two years ago, three years ago, whenever, and nothing was done. I mean, it was, you know, you did call it out, ahead of the curve, ahead of the media.
And you, you know, you could make something,
yeah, I'm proud. I'll be totally honest with you, right? I'm kind of sick of being that guy, so I'm, you know, because every time I do it, I just somebody, somewhere finds a reason to have a pop at me. And life's way too short for that, but, but for the people who had a pop on me back then, right? I appreciate the headline. I appreciate the headline was, you know, come on, Carl, that's not okay. But I didn't make the
headline. I did say it in the broader conversation, but I'll talk about the ideas exchange in a little while that we had to meet last week. Like I am encouraging my peers who are doing it the right way to be public about this and be brave
enough to come out. And there are a few for sure, coming out and saying it, but it needs to be more than just Carl widger, because I just become that guy that's given out all the time, and that's tiresome as well, the lightning rod, yeah, and it's just tiresome we know ourselves, like the people who are, you know, like we've been kind of giggling at there's particular one or two people over in the UK or having a pop at SJP all the time, whether they think they're justified or otherwise, whether
they are justified or otherwise, it's tiresome looking at their stuff. So look, I'm going to kind of learn those lessons and not be that guy. But I would have, I would have loved one of the financial media guys. And they know me. All of them know me. You know, to reach out and go here. You were talking about this a while ago, you know, do you want to, do you want to have a
chat? Yeah, if they, if they all know, you call, you know, it's, you know,
I've got a little postscript to this, this kind of story, because, again, we talked, when you mentioned this car, just said about the is there a compensation scheme or something. You said, No, people just if they've lost it, they've lost it's not regulated. I shared in our group, actually, I was just reminded when you mentioning that there was something in the UK press last week, just looped it up. Now, ethical forestry limited. It's
another one of these ones. It was, you know, forests in Costa Rica, promising all sorts of high returns,
inevitably goes tits up. The whole thing just collapses. There's, you know, there's, there's no legal action pending. So entirely, completely unregulated, nothing to do with, you know, regulated financial planning, financial advice, just some limited company gets set up Bournemouth, pick up the bill, ethical, forestry, limited blah, blah, blah, there's court cases going on. And I was just intrigued as to was it covered in the article? Yeah. It says
that, yeah. So far, the Financial Services compensation scheme stepped in and paid a total of 50 point 7 million
pounds. It's insane, isn't it? The old guff, yeah. You know, they're going to be compensated somewhere down the line. So the real losers is us directly cross as financial directly paying that levy every single year. I trust a brand
that called itself unethical more than I trust a brand that causes us ethical. It's almost like they're screaming at you. Don't trust us, if you have to. You know, it's just classic projection.
It's a honey ethical
forestry. But I think the stronger point here is, you're right. Andy, anyone can set up a company, limited company. Call it what you want, seek investment. Go out
there, get a 50 million. We pick up the bill, and it
doesn't work out. Don't worry about it. You get most of your money back up to the limit. It's just, it's nuts. But it's that's just point call. In Ireland, if you go into something like this, you are not covered
the on the unregulated investment. So look, it was, it was the ideas exchanged. This was brought up and the Central Bank have been asked, you know about regulated advisors selling unregulated loan Note investments and this? And apparently there's legislation required or something like that. Now that's, that's, yeah, that's the reason why it happens. And, oh, that's why we can't do it. Well, of course you can. There are
solutions to this. And look, I think what's transpiring actually, is that the advisors are now. So, so afraid of doing any low note investments that this is dying a death in Ireland, but, but, like, what was said also at the ideas exchange was, well, there'll be something else, because there will always be, yeah, so, you know, like the 6% commission that was talked about, it's in almost every instance, it's more than that, because they were doing what we call here, double
dipping, right? So they were setting up the pension contract, say, Right? Or the investment contract, getting commission on that, and then recommending the investment and getting commission on the investment. You came too early there, because I am going to talk about PR days in a
little double dipping and coming too early. Nick's all over this. Move on, move on, move on. Alan. We just spoke about the FSCS. We need to look into that in a bit more detail. There must be qualifying criteria for there to be payouts. It can't just be any old Tom dick and limited company setting up, calling themselves an investment scheme, and then, yeah, and then they're being payouts. That doesn't make sense. So for us to
there should be a warning on any of these. It's not regulated. This is not covered by the FSCS. If it's not regulated, it doesn't get the cover. That should be the answer. I don't think
that might be the case. That might be the case. So we need, we need to look into that further before we get picked up.
Okay? Regulatorization. Regulatory can't get to sleep.
Podcast, who's next on ultra True Potential, okay?
This is a story about true potential. Who are a very successful business in our space. Many people we know have sold out to true potential. They were paying very big numbers for retiring advisors. The headline is true. Potential Wealth Management posts 243 million operating loss. It's because they've they've got exceptional
costs for the year. They've booked 95,000 sorry, 95 million for provision to cover potential redress in relation to switching assets and onboarding client assets, and another 140 8 million. So about two 50 million, exceptional loss, which pushes them into sorry, exceptional costs, which pushes them into an overall loss for the year. I think the company split into two. It's true potential wealth management, and then the True Potential wider group, True Potential wealth management, looks after 13
billion of client assets. They have got about 1000 advisors that work under that banner. But the wider group, I think, made a profit, and looks after about 34 billion. So there's some huge numbers I'm not exactly sure about the specifics of what this these exceptional costs will cover. It's saying onboarding client assets that that must be switching assets from from one
place to another. It looks like it's setting money aside for potential claims coming from end clients, which is similar to what St James's place did a couple of years ago now, or a year and a bit ago. Yeah, so it's interesting. They're a successful business,
true potential. And yeah, they've
put a load of money aside for potential client claims.
So yeah, this, this was the one that I'm speculating here. But I do
know, hands up, boys. This is bad podcast etiquette. I see, there you go. Smithy speak. They were offering,
remember, I think it was eight times revenue, times revenue to sell your practice. So some people did sell. I mean, that's, that's quite an attractive valuation, to say the least way above market rate, almost twice market rate, but everything is paid for. And I think you got your x revenue on the assumption you would migrate your clients onto their internal portfolios. Yes,
yeah. And I'm like, again, I'm guessing, in order to make in order to make the spreadsheet work, those portfolios are going to be a bit more expensive than the average one, and if you had the average advisor by and so this so they have got a, I think this is what part of the loss
has been attributed to. They've got a skilled person review, like a section 166 order, in which, as I understand, it costs you an absolute force just to get it done, and there'll be loads of redress to say, look, did you do the proper thing? Look, we've always said it can be justified for a client to pay more if the if it's a better product or service, it's not just cheaper is best, but has it been documented? Has it been followed through? Has the
explanation been given? So they're obviously taking a hit on there. That's quite significant loss, as you say, Andy, the big the wider company is still profitable, but right now, that's a punchy loss for this year.
Yes, yeah, Andy, you meant, you said that they're a successful company because they have so much aum.
I didn't say that. I said they're a successful business. Okay,
sorry, they're a successful business because they have so much AUM, because they've
got so much aum. It's one element to it that they've got lots of clients, they've got lots of AUM. They're very profitable business. And the founders, at one stage, of billionaires. So I'm putting that down as a successful business in my head.
But carry on. But they've lost 243 million.
No, they've an exceptional cost of two 50 million, which now puts them in a 10 million profit for this year.
Okay, yep.
So for me, any business buying up a whole load of businesses for eight times their AUM, it's again, not eight times, eight times recurring revenue, yeah, or sorry, their recurring revenue, right? Eight times their revenue is, you know, like it's, it's just crazy stuff. And this was always, this was always going to go pear shaped, and 8%
was always the starting offer. And then they would 8% there various apparently, you very rarely got the full eight but to get the full 8% you have to it. You know, all use all of their in house portfolios, all of the clients on the platform. And obviously it doesn't happen because some clients
push back and there's some attrition. Well, we're not 100% sure the detail, but that's the assumption.
But it's really ridiculous. Yes, nuts. It's absolutely nuts.
Yeah, yeah.
Like, like, Look these, these models, they just, for me, they just don't make any business sense at all. So that's why I would push back on it's a successful business or company, or whatever words you said, it
doesn't seem to matter. How does it? Because nutmeg was a nutmeg was a nut job, and they managed to sell for 700 million, you know, you just got to find a big company with some more on spreadsheet in a back office who says yes to this, and they and they'll go ahead and give just
potential, are not offering those deals anymore. So somebody scaled them back. They've scaled way back way they're about half of what they are, but I think they've actually stopped now. Acquired very, very quizzes. It's like the, you know, Pep Guardiola was the greatest manager of all time because of Barcelona. He managed Messi GAVI and estem buskets, like I could have managed that team and won the Champions
League. You know, if you're going around with these kind of deals, like you're going to accumulate a shitload of AUM, it has nothing to do with the work that you're doing. It's like you're just paying way, way more than they agree.
They're aware of that. The founders are not, you know, they're smart cookies. Do you do voice training for them? No, I don't. Yeah. Actually, I do do for various, various connected folks. Yeah. So they're looking after, currently, the wider group's looking after 32 point 8 billion. That's a lot of life savings to be looked after. Leading up to this, they've been profitable most years, so now obviously this exceptional cost
has pushed them back. So yeah, it might be a good thing than the setting this aside to deal with any potential claims. It might get fully used, only a proportion of it may be spent. But yeah, interesting story nonetheless.
Okay, let's wrap that one up. Thank you, ultra Okay, so Tom Dunbar is the CEO of integration, financial arrangements, IFA trade, the trade name that we recognize is transact. He's the head honcho there, and they've just launched their own podcast, I think, about four episodes in it's worth a listen to had an email from Tom. He said, Hi, Nick, please give the transact podcast a shout out on your podcast, I have done that. Tom, okay, I've
done it. If you are short enough short on topics to discuss, I'd value your panel's view on whether advice platforms like transact should offer crypto etns And we spoke a couple of episodes ago about the FCA slightly relaxing its stance on crypto and introducing allowing crypto etns to be introduced into the UK market, we gave it a good thrashing. Then, you know, it's like wizards on clouds, and then you're magnifying the risk by using an Etn. So I'm gonna go
first on this. Whether you guys have got any input, I don't know. I think one of the pieces of proper, full fat platforms, like transact and fundment, or however, they're open architecture, and you can pretty much put whatever you want on there, which is absolutely great. And which is absolutely great. And I think, yes, Tom I think you should put crypto etns on your platform, because that's part of your proposition. But the other, the corollary to that is, should then advisors use
them? And I would say categorically no, from the world of Nick Lincoln, but that's a different thing. But yeah, definitely I think transact should offer them. It's, you know, that that is. And you know, again, like fun, wouldn't like transact. They have their own proprietary software. If they want to get this stuff on, they haven't got to go through a massive third party software provider. They just do the code and added the seed, and there it
is. And Bob's your uncle, so I would definitely say, crack on. But keep an eye on the ifas that are using it.
Thoughts. Put them on the Red List,
wow. I mean, you know, by beware,
it's an it's an interesting kind of dynamic. Is obviously what we know is crypto is it's kind of the it's a new thing. It's definitely volatile as an asset class, and you need to understand it before you it's not
for widows. And orphans particularly, does the organization that provides the framework, like the platform, do they carry reputational risk if somebody just piles in on the IFA says you put all your eggs in this basket because it's the best thing since sliced bread, and it falls 80% which it has done in the past, are they concerned about that? Now, your point, Nick, is they should. They should not be concerned at all. They're simply facilitating open architecture whoever wants to
use it. But I do know that SIP providers in the past got themselves into a lot of trouble by allowing that. That's where I was going. Yeah, with my hand raising, yeah. I remember the the harlequin property. It was a bunch of weird stuff that advisors piled into or in SIP wrappers. And I can't remember what the name for some of the smaller ones, I think they just run into the legal fined. They're just court cases. Yeah, still think
that was wrong. I still, I still think, sorry, Carl, I still think the SIP I think the supervisor. They're just facilitators. At the time, I thought it's very sad for the clients who've lost money, but it's the advisor put them in, not the sit provider, you know, just think of us just casting blame on everybody and nobody, taking responsibility.
Yeah, just to finish my point, these Yeah, crypto slash Bitcoin. Etns As the day that we publish, they are now available to retail investors to invest in. So advisors, we should know about them. We should understand them in order to be able to communicate with our clients, our thoughts. We've mentioned this several times in the past. They are available, but I honestly don't, as somebody who is generally positive about Bitcoin across the piece, as a as the ability to hold
some of it percentage. You decide what percent was, 1% 10% or whatever. I'm generally positive, but I don't think these etns are going to move the dial much at all. There's layers of complexity. Don't think, I mean ironically, I don't think what I've seen so far, they're covered by FSCS, which is bizarre, if your ethical rainforest fund can be and Bitcoin etns are not. I think there's some regulatory, maybe pi issues about them, you know, if you're giving advice on them.
So despite the fact that they're now available again to retail investors, I don't think you're going to see a lot of ifas biting the handoff at this stage, when we have, like, a black rock, a black rock, Bitcoin, ETF, which is, which is going to come at some point, which is going to come at some point, then you're going to get more mainstream uptake on it. But interesting story. Yeah, I
agree with you, Nick. I think they should make it available, but not take any obviously, yeah, but legal responsibility, yeah.
I see. I see the dilemma, though. I like, I see the point about, it's open architecture, and let the advisors go in. I'm not sure, you know, saying that, I don't think advisors will, you know, take us, you know, use it that much. I think there'll be a whole ton of advisors will decide that they're now Bitcoin advisors. And this is a way to get in and make a few quid on it. But another story from the arena capital debate, right? Because it's exactly like you
guys said, right. So there was 190 advisors sold this thing, and who were the ones that were named in the in the newspaper, the SIP providers. So those guys, the amount of money that they held on their platforms in Arena capital investments was published in the newspaper. It should have been. The advisors were named. Those guys. All they did was facilitate. So I can see transact. I can see transact.
Dilemma here. It's like, you know, should we, as an open architecture firm, we should, but do we then, you know, carry some reputational risk down the line. So it's an interesting it's an interesting one. It's not straightforward for
sure. And just to close on this, there was a good podcast, the FT advisor, advisor briefing. It came out October the third. I'll put a link to it in the so called show notes, where the good friend of the show and the advisors, advisor on crypto, Daniel Parkinson, he with another chap. They are talking through the launch of the Bitcoin. Etn, it's worth listening to. And Daniel, who's a big fan of you know is, obviously, he's he, he is an
expert on this. I know he's been to talk to your firm, Smithy, he is. He's pretty downbeat about this. He says, this, this, this could go badly wrong. Listen to it. It's 23 minutes, and it's a it's an educational Yeah. Please do share
this is, this is one. I do think maybe transact shouldn't need first mover of advantage. It's early. It's just because it's available. Doesn't mean you pile in day one, keep a watching brief, see if more mainstream products become available, and then do it. I
suppose I should know this, but do they have the full suite of other etns on there? I know, like Hargreaves does and all the other open architecture platforms, but I think transact,
a bit more selective on those things. I think isn't transact view that they will if upon request, if an advisor says, I realize this fund, they will put it on.
On did so would they have put on ethical forestry investments, if one advisor,
if that was, if that was a number and a, yeah, it's not, you sit so what do you call it fund? I don't think, I think it's just a limited company which doesn't exist. It's a wizard on a cloud
doesn't exist. You're in pinner, not Palermo, right? Let's move on.
Watch your
incipient budget, which by the time the trappers are listening to this will have been delivered, but you're
hoping for, yeah, so I just had to mention it, because people will be listening on Thursday going, he's mentioning about the budget. So we do record this on a Monday afternoon. Big secret, hoping for changes to hopeful hoping for changes to exit tax, which I've been harping on about for a number of years. And again, this is like new news. Lots of people are harping on about it now, but so our exit tax is 41% and capital gains is 33 we have deemed disposal. The details
don't matter. It makes no sense equalize them. Please, unlikely, but hopefully he'll drop it somewhat and commit to, you know, doing it over a period of time. I think if we're we're kind of broadly shitting bricks that the corporation tax wind falls that we're getting at the moment are going to go away sometimes. So why not look after our own? So why not make entrepreneur relief much more attractive, so that the the guys like the stripe guys don't leg it, make it attractive for them
to stay. Prsas are hoping for an increase in limits for people over 50 and over 60. There. That was your chance there. Nick, we're hoping for new SSIs, which is basically your ice as I think it's too long term for politicians to be thinking about, but they should do it. So that's what I hope comes out. Probably none of them will come, but there will be some changes.
Fella, we over here in the UK. We got to wait another two months, two months until
free Christmas.
Isn't it 28 isn't it 28th of November?
The end of November, Christmas? Yeah, maybe the Irish can be shocking. Ireland could be a tax haven for the British. We'll relocate over there because it's more attractive. Got the weather? No more grand. Thanks. All right,
the Welsh coming over, the English.
Yeah, that's right,
you nailed it, Andy, but I didn't
want to say You're welcome, Smithy, I'm half Scottish. Oh, give me half a hug. I think you need pure bread. English, actually, I'm in.
Yeah, there will be no such tax advantages for the our brethren in England,
a golden visa to Ireland. Smithy,
yeah, exactly, Portugal or the island.
It's in. What would you prefer Portugal? I saw something on LinkedIn this week from financial advisor, and I think friend of the show, Matt Vosper, and he just brought up a point. He got a 46 year old client with 600 grand or so in his pension pot. And the client said, Hold on. So these new changes that are coming in with IHT and pensions in April 2027 if I die before I can actually touch my pension. This money is still included in my estate. And Matt said, yeah, and the client
wasn't happy. I know you mentioned this before, Anna, but the more I think about this, I think this is absolutely this is this is outrageous. How can something be in your estate if you can't access it when you're alive? That is just wrong. So this is the thing. So if you die before the state, you know, 57 currently simply 58 the pension pot still falls inside your estate, even though you can't access that money in any form
until you've hit that age. And I just think that's that's so iniquitous, they won't do anything about it.
But just to unpack that a bit more. Nick, so I should put your hand up, Andrew, sorry, yeah, on what
front Nick just because you can't have access to it. Let's just focus on that. Let's say you could have access to your pension, but you chose to wait further on, like, what's your biggest issue?
Which is, if you can't access it, Andy, they shouldn't put it, they you can access your right. Susan's, fine. They're liable to inheritance tax. I'm just saying,
if you do things with you through
spending. Yeah, you can do things with them. You also you can't gift them. You can't transfer your pension to your spouse, or
it's a massive for most of us, it's the biggest sort of the house. It's probably, for most people, their biggest invested asset, even if they don't know, you know, and on everything, you've got this pot of money that you cannot access, and we are going to tax you on it when
you die the pension age, I've got inheritance tax. Inheritance tax,
can you step into my threshold? Free most microphone, thanks. Have you
got an inheritance tax? Tax Free thresholds? Yes, yes, yeah,
you basically breach that. So
yeah. See, we have all of this here already. We just gotta, you know, it's a matter of course. So, yeah,
no, Nick, you're right. And I have raised this before, and by the way, so that remember getting, I I posted something about this from LinkedIn. I don't know when it was, when this news came out, which is nearly a year ago, and got shot down by a few people said, well, pensions are designed for using for retirement planning purposes. I went, Yeah, I get that, but you have no option. You cannot access this money.
And in the event, and you know, people saying, well, most people aren't going to die when they're in their 40s, true, but some will, some will, some unfortunately get dreadful disease or be an accident or something, I remember posting, it's like, you know, Hi kids, really sorry to hear about your dad passing away. Here's a tax bill. You know, it is immoral, absolutely outrageous. We used to always be able to talk about pensions when I was when I was in the days when I was selling
pensions, you see. And good thing is, is outside your estate for inheritance tax purposes, if you were to die before accessing it, obviously, then later, when drawdown came along and all the these various methods you could use to access your fund, then inheritance tax was applied, which was not completely unreasonable, that it was applied on the fund that you had drawn down, you crystallized effectively. And now they've said, No, everything, everything is how old you are?
Are you proposing the solution? It's outside of the estate until you can access it. That's what it used to be. That's your halfway house.
Yeah, here's this enormous pot of money, in some cases, as I say, for most people, outside of their house, it's their biggest investment. Here's this pot of money that you cannot access. You can't enjoy that at all.
You're of that pension access the moment you're of pension access age. It's in your estate. Yeah, that's what you're proposing.
Okay? Now, it's not ideal, but it's certainly better than the status quo, which
is, I'm caught by it, so I'm the exact situation you just mentioned. You know, something in the early 40s, with some money and money, and I pop it, my kids have got an additional bill based on what's in my pension. Yeah, yeah. We've, we remember, you've run the numbers. You boys can access your pensions and stuff like that. So you don't, you know, yeah, but we haven't
affected is this edit that out timestamp? Yes.
Andy, I remember you, you were saying you declined, and we had a similar one as well. You got a client who is a business owner who's also got a substantial pension fund and their pre retirement age the marginal tax bill, remember, because you had business property relief, so there's no inheritance tax on that huge No, they've gone from zero inheritance tax to, in some cases, millions overnight as a result.
Yeah, for a lot of people. So if you own a business, if you're a business, which, if you died whilst owning a business, issue to to it is a separate issue specifically to this. But for
both clients, the pension is fully coming into the estate Carl and the business have been, there's like a credit against it.
Yeah, loads of people are hugely affected. Yeah, we've got to, you know, operate in the rules that we're we're given. So this is what we got to do, just
conscious the time here we're at 55 minutes in. We're still doing typical tidbits, but we got the last thing on the slate. Watch an uplifting story.
Yeah, well, it is exchange. We had the we had the meeting last week. I think we mentioned this last, the last episode, or maybe the couple of episodes ago. It's just really good, and it's really, as I said at the meeting, if it energizes me, I'm going to do it. And this energizes me. Number one, course, for your monthly call, sorry, we did speak about that. We're kind of doing it a little bit ad hoc at the moment, because kind of, I'd say the last time we met was back in
May, so there was a big gap. And we're having another one. The next one, actually, I'm hosting it in Limerick in the Mattis office, just show people around and all that kind of stuff. But look, it's a safe place, I think, and hope, we shall see. But it is a safe place to share information. There's, you know, kind of heads up on a few things being shared. There was a CPC update by one of the guys was which was really good, because it was like, it wasn't the
boring stuff. It was like, here's what you need to know and what your business your business is going to be affected by cup. Four of the group went to future proof in the States. And I think three of the four, I'm thinking right in this that's their second time being at Future Proof Huntington Beach. I think it is. Yep, said it's just amazing and totally different to anything that has been done in this side of the world.
But look, it's just a couple of
people, and I've got a few LinkedIn messages, and I've ignored them because I'm really busy and I'm really sorry, but, you know, it's not rocket science. Just just set this thing up. Have a bit of an agenda. Get people. To share kind of good news story, what's working for them, and maybe you know kind of news that they've heard around the place, and have one presenter. There you go. That's your agenda. It's it's really, really easy. You just got to have this willingness to
share. I think, is the is the thing that will make it work the best. We don't have a we have our chairman, our own kind of chairman. We don't have any. I know you guys had external facilitators in the ones you were talking about. We don't have any of that. It's up to whoever presents, decides on the venue, and kind of pays for the venue and puts on the coffees and that kind of stuff. So works really, really well. And as I say, if it energizes you, then
you'll go and do it again. This one definitely energizes me. Great, great, great. Bunch of people.
Great stuff, a superb car. There's quite a few little offshoot ideas exchanges that have happened from trap, which is great. And if there are other people that want to launch one, I think someone was telling me about potentially looking to do one. Is Sheffield recently, yeah, we're gonna have to get, have to get some facility set up where people communicate us, and then we share people local to them, just on the future proof.
I know a lot of people are hopefully planning to go to future proof in 2026 I think they've just launched their dates. It's the 14th, the 17th of September, and I know quite a few people are planning on going out there. So if you are, plan ahead. It's the 14th, the 17th of September, 2026, Smithy.
No, that was it. That's all good. Yeah, there's groups in Glasgow, northern Belfast, I think Northern Ireland, Sheffield, yeah. Manchester, maybe. So, yeah, they that's the whole point. We've been going to groups like this for years, and mastermind
groups, masterminds, yeah, exactly.
So you get, you get the right people in the room. And the thing is, being candid, sharing your thoughts, and, you know, sharing some of your challenges as well, some of the things that haven't worked. Yeah, huge. Yeah, hugely. That's really helpful. And you Yes, you use a Chatham House rules, so it's not for public yeah discussion. And you've got the right, right? People in the room, very, very, very
bad they do, they do talk technical stuff sometimes. And I like, yeah, I go, I go, a little red in the face, and go, yeah, it's brilliant.
Brilliant, right? Good stuff. Good stuff. Okay, so we are just best part of an hour on topical too, because that might be a record. So I guess it's time for the meat and potatoes of episode 81, of the real advisor podcast, T, R, A, P trap, and this is something I put on the slate, and I'm aware that what I'm about to talk about now may seem very much a white, privileged, first world problem, and I take that on board, especially if you're a
client or an advisor. Sorry, an advisor starting off in business, and you're scrambling around trying to get clients, and then you're working full pelt. So this may is this even a problem? I don't know what I'm talking about. Is this, I've been advising since 2001 I've been doing full fat financial planning since 2008 my Zoom annual planning meetings, my zapps, some of them are over now, and it's a ridiculously
quick, quick time. I feel I know my clients in a better than they know themselves, sometimes certainly around the sort of confluence of where money and emotions fit. And this is younger advisors. This is something that will happen to you, and you won't even realize it, but it will happen to you the realize it, but it will happen to you the more you deal with clients, and you build up trust. I have the zapps, the clients do what I tell them without virtually any pushback.
It's so easy because they trust me, because Nick said to do it. We've worked with Nick now for X number of years. We'll just do it. So I don't have the, I don't know, the hassle of following up after zap happens, getting people to do things. So the ZAP happens are really easy. I know my clients really, really well. We've had a great run in the market since March, 2009 I know we've had blips along the way. You know, the Wuhan lab leak, the 34% decline in 33 days, or vice versa, whatever that was,
but that was five years ago. The Liz trust, let's give growth a try. Budget that was 2020 and that didn't massively affect me, because I don't have much exposure to UK bonds. I don't have much exposure to UK stock market and everything's like you guys as market cap. Weight has been and gone, and I'm doing these cash flows in the zappums. And, you know, with voyant, I can't talk about other brands, but certainly with voint, you can compare plans from years ago
with the current plan. And I'm looking at plans now that were done 510, years ago, and they're remarkably now where the client should be. So they're really easy meetings. There's very little tension or friction. I'm not wishing for a market decline, but I have to say that's when we earn our core and we roll our sleeves up, and that's what I feel I'm adding most value in my client
relationships. And that's when you go on the front foot as a full fat financial planning advisor, and you say to clients, okay, here's an extra email with what's going on. Here's my Zoom candle if you want to have an ad hoc meeting to talk about what's going through, because that's when we are not keep and we keep, you know, we stand between our clients and the big mistake, but we haven't had to do that really in any meaningful form.
Since, since the great financial crisis, I've got some clients now, probably more than I'd like to who has, we've gone to a sort of biennial arrangement with the Zap, and that means once every two years. Andy, thank you because, thank you. Because things are so sort of cushty. And I don't know the question I'm asking myself
is still available during that time. If anything that goes wrong, you'll be, you'll be the first person to call
absolutely without that, without shadow of a doubt. But I don't know if it's the Protestant work ethic thing, kind of just saying, Nick, you know, this is, should you be doing more for the clients in these in these good times? Should be offering additional services, extending the zap them into into other modes of conversation? Or is this just a reflection of a really well organized business, a good business a good business model and a lifestyle business that, just for the moment, is working,
is working really well. So no other advisors. Some advisors feel this. Brett Davidson alludes to it a lot with his newsletters as messages. You know, are you? Are you kind of you suffering a bit of ennui? Are you stuck in a bit of a rut? And I don't think I am. But then I sometimes I think, God, you know, this is at the moment, it's all too comfortable, and that intrinsically makes me nervous. So I think Carl, do you want to respond to some of that in some form or another? Yeah, look,
I think it's, it's, it's kind of brave to say it like that, because it is totally and utterly a first world problem. And I know that a lot of our listeners are folks trying to get their businesses off the ground, and they're Oh, poor you, right, but, but nonetheless, I think it's, I think is an issue there's the first thing I would say is, if you did nothing else, I think asking two questions at those meetings, maybe one prior to the Meeting, which is, have you
anything for the agenda? Now, they'll probably say no, because they know you so well. There might be a little bit afraid of you, but I think, I think a good question to ask at the start of the meeting is, what leaving aside finances, just you and your life? What is the most important thing that is going on in your life? Now I think that will generate a discussion around you'll just have a more comprehensive discussion around things other than just the
financial plan. So look, they're just kind of two things I would always say to to my own team. But I think this is real. I really do think this is real. And what I would do if I got to that stage, Nick bearing in mind, I probably did a couple of times in my career get to that stage, what I would recommend people do is not what you would will do or would do, but I think it's it's worth having that discussion, because for me, it sounds like you're kind of cruising a small bit at the
moment. And for me, then there's a there's a phrase, whether it's a little bit salesy, whether, whether it's relevant or not, I don't know if you're not growing, you're dying. And really for me, if you're just cruising along and you have loads of extra capacity, and things are just getting a little bit kind of same old, same old, maybe a little bit boring, like, I know, I know how you your business grows, right? It grows through referrals. But you don't even ask for the referrals. They
just come in. And you could change just something really small in that at the end of every meeting, go, Hey, by the way, I have capacity. So is there anybody in your network who you feel that could, you know, get some benefit out of a meeting for me? Because I actually have, you know, some spare capacity. Because what I think Nick, what you need is you need to get what would energize
and motivate you. So I'm not talking just to Nick I'm just, I'm talking generally, people who get to this phase of their business maturity. It's what energizes, what motivates, what? What could you really go? Yeah, I can commit to that goal. I think that's what you should be asking yourself, as opposed to, are these zap UMS? Are they? Are they too short? Because, you know, change can be as good as a rest, right? So it's just change it up a little bit, like for me, in your shoes. And this is what
I did do. I'd be kind of hiring people and going, here, can you just kind of look after that, and I might sit in on the meeting now and again, especially if they're going to biannual Nick, you know, and then I be going, that's frees me up, and I'll drive this thing on. So that's where we're obviously completely different but, but I think you could get bring more energy to your solo practice by actually bringing in some newer blood and maybe some younger folks. Because I know a
lot of your Come on. No, no. I know, like Nick has said this before, that a lot of his a lot of his clients are in decumulation, so they're drawing down or whatever. And maybe go and get some people who are in the accumulation they Henry's, as they say, and maybe do a bit of work there. Because I think you'll that will stretch you in. Be a little bit and that might be good, like, what gives energy to the practice? That's the question you need to take a step back and answer for yourself.
And hoping for, hoping for market crashes. You know that that's not the solution, because that's just what our job is.
No, no, no. Thank you, Carl, thanks firstly for your very considerate response. I'm not hoping for it, but I just remember that was the time when you really felt invested in your clients, and you just really felt, you know, I'm really doing good here, and it kind of gave you and still, Carl for me that, you know, it's still the greatest thrill when a prospect says, Yeah, we want to
come and work with you. Nick, I mean, don't get me wrong on that, and I still love that, and that will, that'll always be with all four of us. I'm sure Alan Ultra anything to add.
You go, I'll chip in. And then Alan can go last. Yeah, it's a few points here. Well, first of all, compliments to you, Nick. You do use great systems and tech, and you've been plugging away at this for years. You've certainly done way more than your 10,000 hours. You've now become a master. Are
you wait? Are you waiting for the but who would have thought it's a benefit being a financial advisor, if you're pedantic, pernickety, dogmatic and a pain in the ass, your clients would just want to, you know, get rid of you as soon as possible. Crack on. You know, it works for you. But you've done a lot of the Yeah. This is Yeah. Okay, so you've done a lot of the heavy lifting in the early stages with clients. They come to us. Their financial house is not in order.
There's many tasks we need to do to get the financial house in order, focusing on the financial plan and getting the portfolio right. And then obviously the ongoing is more servicing. You are massively, you know, a servicing business, you don't take on that many new clients based on the existing clients that you have. And every year that goes past, the financial house is getting slightly more refined and less, you know, more work to do.
So you just like
myself, you take on clients and you say, I'm available for you, unlimited phone calls, unlimited emails, unlimited meetings, if that is required. Often it's not the case. If they've had a very quiet year, and they don't need to contact you because they've had a quiet year. I mean, that's a good thing. They'll still hear from you to do, to do the annual planning meeting. You're always, you know, on hand. I don't know
what the solution is for you. If you want to take on a load of new clients, then that would just add to your workload. You don't want to grow out the team. You don't want to employ any further financial advisors. So, yeah, I suppose it's a purpose question. Your end, really?
Yeah, just to reiterate, it's not, I'm not sure everything is a problem. I just sometimes think, you know, this is it's just, everything is just going along. This is why I think I'm talking myself into a complete, you know, catastrophe. And I'm aware that people are working. They're not so, not just the younger advisors and then this thing of ours, but all around the Western world. You know, the inflation has brought back the last few years in this
country, wages. I know people are just working their you know, their noses are to the whatever, Grindstone rhinestones, just to put food on the table. You know, so but then, but then also, we are predominantly a knowledge based, you know, most of us are knowledge workers. Now, you just have, you just happen to be
a knowledge worker that's cracked it, you know. And you use great systems and technology, and you focus on the right clients. And you, you know, you put in your your years to well, to
your credit, Nick, you've, you've educated your clients. They don't come in with the first meeting as a sort of pre packed understand. Markets go up. Markets go down. You've spent many, many years shaping their thinking, you know, responding to delivering the vision, yeah, market fluctuations and all the rest of it and so, and you've got a relatively mature client bank that's kind of grown with you, and so they can know the answers. There is less to do. And it is interesting, if you
have a steady flow. You know, higher number of new clients coming in. We've always thought they're the ones that need much more hand holding and much more communication. Is much more proactive contact. My question, Nick for you, is, is this, is this sense, this feeling, is about you and your purpose and direction? Or is it more? I wonder if the clients are looking for more from it?
No, I don't think. I don't think the clients look well, they could be. They don't emote it. They just seem generally happy when I say the meeting's coming to an end. They're the ones that reached us. They're the ones who reach for the leave zoom button fastest. No, I don't. I'm just throwing it out there because I think I listen. No, I am in many
ways. I've never been happier in my life, in all aspects of my life, okay, and everything is really good, but I'm just very conscious that this is almost too easy at the moment. Okay, let me reword that. If we do have the next temporary decline, then we'll find out how many of my clients have actually taken on board the vitamin C, because it's been so easy street for so long.
We had the Trump tariffs this year, it was a minus 19% if your phones were very, very quiet, I know, obviously the next one could be far worse and far deeper. That's, again, another test, if you had minimal inbound, that, again, is complements
to your client ideas. Have minimal inbound, like all of us hope.
Yeah, exactly. So, I mean, there are this, there are always things going on. We just talked about sweeping changes in the budget, and there's. Another budget coming on. There's always things going on. And there's usually not ever, you know, we have clients that from one year to the next, not much changes in their life, and then suddenly something daughter's getting married, or they want to gift assets, there's, there's always
other things going on. What we've what we've done a bit in the past, is, if we try to the interesting dynamic is, and I've heard it from my colleagues as well, the meeting, the 10th meeting in a row, 10 years in a row, for example, where you've been doing proper financial planning from day one and the investments. Yes, there's occasional blips, but they're generally moving up and right,
generally positive. They're actually relatively and again, it's a very ungrateful thing to say, but there's a thing that they're a bit boring to even to deliver. It's the same thing. But, I mean, that's we should be thankful for that, that Exactly, yeah, we've done a good job. And so it's the feeling, I don't think your clients are not your clients, because they get this one hour, 20 minutes, whatever it is, zoom, zoom, annual planning, meet. That's the
reason they sign up. They sign up because you get them a sense of peace of mind and financial security, knowing you're in the background at all times in the same ways you don't. You don't want to be phoning an ambulance every day or something, but you want to know that if I needed one, I'll go and get one in the case of an urgent situation. So there's a lot of that. The only other thing I would say is, should you wish to because continual education of your clients, I think is a valuable
thing. If you were to say to them, and don't just say, is anything else I can do? Because most people will say, No, not really. But if you gave them a range of things, like, I could do another 20 minutes on the invest, investments that you know, what you actually own, what you have, because I think most clients don't really understand fully the investment piece. Do you want to be
educated a bit more? Do you want me to do 20 minutes, half an hour on estate planning, and just so you know the mechanics, and should you wish to gift assets to children, future years or whatever? You add an educational piece on which you'll have to be sort of on your game to do it, research it, and deliver it. But you can ask them, and maybe most will say, Nah, not really. That's fine. But you you'll be seen to be doing
everything you can. You're absolutely committed to delivering high quality service to your clients. And yeah, be grateful. And when the next, the next, inevitable temporary market correction comes along, you're fully ready to act.
Thanks. I call but be vulnerable and tell them exactly what you're thinking. Say I'm just worried that you think these meetings are too short. Is there anything that we can do to is there anything I'm missing here, anything you'd like me to add in?
Just, I mean, I will clarify that I don't think it's not the client. I don't think the clients are worried about it being short. I think, in fact, that's put that Joking aside. I think they quite value that, because they know I'll only say something if it's worth saying. And I both extend the
meetings out, it's, it's just this sense of, yeah, and we it's just like, this is all
that's a new so honed out. And also, I'm a one man proper one man band. I mean, even, even Andy does get some external help. So you call and Alan you after this is shut down recording this, you'll go back to your and there'll be things with the team, good things going on that nothing to do with clients. Yeah, that keeps you involved in the business, keeps your brain matter going. And I don't have it, you know, obviously I've got voices in my head, but I can mitigate that to a degree, but not
Yeah, I
for me, Nick, there's your God is telling you something, and at your peril, ignore your gut. Okay, thank you.
All right, this has been a therapy session for Nick.
It's quite funny. The last beer I went for with Nick, I started telling him, telling him a story, and he said, Andy, be quiet. We're having a beer. I said, Well, what did we talk about? Then he said, We're men. We just sit here and think we
did say that. I said, we sit here and we push it down.
I had all many stories to share with him, and he just said, Andy, we're going for a drink.
He just does rabbiting. He's like Andy, for Christ's sake. Give it a rest. He went to some silence, which I said on my first date to Penelope. Can you believe that I said,
but just my final, my final point on this one, my final point on this one, which is, maybe for a long conversation, is, I mean, just use the car analogy. So, you know, we have our financial mots in January, February, March, and the rest of the year is just servicing things that go wrong. Hopefully there's no servicing, because you're, you know, everything's, everything's okay to increase this, some advisors have six monthly meetings. And I know you boys have, sorry, experimented with this in the
past. Maybe Nick not, but Alan Nicole, maybe. And other firms have quarterly meetings, and we know that they often turn into just focusing on totally unimportant investment movements, looking at funds. It's an investment derby. It's not proper financial planning. And some advisors get confused and think, Well, they're paying me a lot, so therefore I have to see them every six months. Again. I think that's a mistake.
Just because they're paying you more doesn't mean you want to increase the pain of or pain or enjoyment of having these having these meetings. So very brief thoughts on, on increasing your annual planning meters to every six months, which, for me, it's a massive No, I'm available for servicing, for ad hoc things going wrong, but having it set in your offering, I think so that was,
that was a bit classic. I think it still goes on for you know, you get a classic gold, silver, bronze. Service proposition, yeah,
every three months, it's like, I remember, I remember I speak platinum and meet you every three years. Is that part of the service?
No, I remember speaking to like a wealthy client years ago. And we did, we never did this. We was talking about it. Moved to quarterly meetings, because he's a big client, pays big fees. The rest of it, I would pay extra just to meet you once a year.
Yeah, yeah, that is the
perfect answer, right? Gents, thank you for that. And think that's quite an unusual meat of potatoes. I am conscious of
time we should revisit this Nick in the future. If you make some tweaks and changes, he's not
going to do that. I'm going to listen. He's gonna do he's gonna listen to everything. We say it and ignore it.
Okay, right? We're at 77 minutes in. God help us. So let's, let's move on to the next section of the show, which is where we answer the TRAPPIST questions. I can see post is at the front door. She's dragged the bulging sack to my front door, and this is where we answer questions from our beloved TRAPPIST audience. You can click on the link in the so called show notes and leave your question and or you can click on the pinned tweet on x, or the pinned X on Twitter, whatever
you want to call it. And we do get through them. And who's this one from today? This looks like an overseas stamp on this one. So this could be somebody from outside of the UK and Ireland. This is from a Mr. Patrick Duggan, who I believe is from South Africa. And he says, Hi, gentlemen, thank you for the
fantastic podcast. My question is around, if how you serve to educate your clients children about investing, we're all aware of the complexities that can do materialize with intergenerational wealth transfer, and as advisors, the impact this may have on our client basis. And so I think that paying it forward by educating our clients kids is a great idea. Do you do it? If so, then how do you do it? Question for all of you. Thank you. Thank
you. Patrick Logan, who wants to go with this, so keep the questions firing in. We do like to give them a really detailed read before the show starts, and give considered responses. We've, we've,
we've talked about this in the past, haven't we? We've talked about, it depends what you mean. If you mean just educating kids, just, I don't know what would that be, running a workshop for children, or some we've so we haven't done that, but we will when we talk to clients and they raised various issues. And the children are becoming more mature, becoming adult, where there's conversations around gifting money to children and what have you, then we'll absolutely,
we'll speak to them. We used to mean, many years ago, say we'll do full planning for all your children for free. We used to do that. That was something that came from you. Mentioned it before. Paul Etheridge. Paul Etheridge used to do that as they're the founding father of financial planning. Would offer free financial planning services to your children up until the
age of 30. But then, the more you look at that, and someone's got three kids and you're financial planning, you go to the full fact, find full everything on board. Them as clients, it would just wipe out all the profit you're making from from parents. So we, through experience, we step back from that, but we will absolutely on request, meet with and do and continue to do, meet with children, speak to them, do one on ones, but not necessarily take them on as clients. Andy, yeah, when
I take on new clients, I say, one of the benefits is, I look after families. If you've got any, usually it's adult children, 18 plus. You know, I'm available to answer any questions they have about buying a house, mortgages, investing. Obviously, if clients said, you know, I've got a young son daughter that wants to learn about X, Y, Z, I'd obviously rock up and, you know, help them as much as I can. I obviously look after the investments for
grandchildren, children. So I, you know, DICE is in the UK, so I've got loads of kids that are, you know, 01234, all the way up to, you know, 1618, but I don't do anything super proactive in this space. I've done various things over the years and gone into schools and talked to sixth forms about credit cards, and you just get a massive load of blank faces. They're just generally not interested in this
stuff. But I'm sure someone else will say, No, we go into schools and we share stories and we have great success. It's just not my personal sweet spot. You know, I could just about talk to 55 year old financial advisors.
Yeah, I think the question was about, there's this element, which we've also had a past episode of wealth transfer. Well, transferred you want to protect your own interests as well as helping your clients. Of course, yeah, I get it running educational workshops and things, I mean, my, my slightly cynical view is you can run all the workshops, all the training programs, if you if the children of your current client doesn't really like who doesn't engage. Not using the relevant
technology you can. You could have done all the workshops you want. They'll just find another advisor that particularly wants.
But also, there's enough clients. There's enough clients in your sweet spot. Anyway, you don't have to overly worry about some, you know, an unknown in the future. You know, as in your 54 year old client not leaving money to the child that then won't become a client, and focus on the clients that are ready to help. Help, take help today, but just,
but just do it for for existing clients, if they specifically ask you, could you have have a word with John and Sarah, because, you know, they get well, tell them in the welcome meeting.
So if you've got any adult kids that need help with anything to do with money, I'm not looking to take them on as a client. I just want to be a sounding board. You know, they've got pension at work. They need to look at like it's a huge, huge benefit. And lots of kids, sorry, adults, adult children have taken up that offer.
Cole, no, my hands raised. Andy, you're not really getting this system down at all.
Are you struggling? A couple of quick points, I would say, I think this might be self selecting as well the audience that we deal with, because the two people that come into us for financial advice are going to be generally, maybe a bit more savvy with money and investments, eight year olds, and they'll have a bit more invested wealth, and they probably have spoken to their children a bit more than the great masses get spoken to by their parents, or whatever the
care workers. And the second thing I say, and they're just on the Zoom front and this, and I know some people will still have physical meetings, and I get that great. But one of the great things about doing online planning meetings with clients is you can say, as the as they get older, by the way, if you'd like Melinda or Michael, your daughter or your son to be stepping on the Zoom meeting, I'm more than happy to do it. And that's a great way of just
bringing them in. And I've got numerous families now where I do that, where you've got mum and dad and then the offspring in the meeting all in different parts of the world, or did pass the UK, certainly, and it just okay they can see you and they
get a feel for you. And as Alan said, doesn't mean they're going to come on board with you, because this is a human business, and we're some people are going to be attracted to us for reasons we'll never understand that some people are going to be instantly repelled by us for lots of reasons that I do understand. But just get them in. Get them into the Zoom meeting in the planning meetings and Far East to do online. Carl, sorry, anything to wrap this up
on? No, no. Okay, all right, let's move on, because we are at 84 minutes and we'll go on to culture corner.
Think it's me today. It's the Boris Becker podcast on the hyper sorry, yeah, on the High Performance podcast. Boris Becker is on there. Have you listened to it? Carl, or not? No, not yet. Andy, okay, I will do Boris Becker on the High Performance podcast. It is superb, well worth two hours of your time. Very open, unfiltered, talks about the challenges of advising young, wealthy sports professionals, having the right people around you, the wrong people around
you. He gives a lot of insight into the banks that he's dealt with, the bankruptcy system in the UK, things he got right, things he got wrong. His time in prison, again, using his social skills to try and keep out of trouble again, the issues with the prison system, it is well worth two hours of your time. It's definitely one of the podcasts, one of the best podcasts I've listened to this
year. Brilliant, more more impactful for us money professionals, because we get an insight into the mess that he got, you know, with having bad advisors around him, which is hopefully becoming less and less of an issue with more, you know, ethical, you know better, focused financial advisors, focused on sports professionals. So yeah, anyway, check it
out. It's great. I will do that. Andy, thank you. Okay, I've got two ones. One's really, really quick. For some reason in my life, I managed to get through to the grand old age I am without reading Orwell's 1984 What about what a brilliant, prescient book it is. It's not very long, and in a time where an Irishman, Graham Lincoln, can be arrested at Heathrow for hurty words he said in the USA by armed policemen, where in this country, they want
to bring in a digital ID. And we know what a cluster muck that is going to be. If you haven't read 1984 Do yourself a favor and read it. The Orwell wrote this book Christ 7080, years ago. It is like, it's like, it's not the manual for how to do it. Now you think they're actually reading this as verbatim, as the way, but my proper longer one is the Peter McCormack show. He's a Bedford based businessman, owns Bedford Town Football Club, has loads of guests.
Bedford, real pill, big bitcoiner
as well. Nick, as you know, yes, he is a big, big corner. That's how he saw the club. Bedford, real Nick. Okay, fine. Thank you. That's, that's just brilliant. I'm going to make sure that note goes
in that Yeah, right next time you come on air, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
right.
He had Nick Leeson on his show, and in 19 five, Nick Leeson brought down the oldest bank in the world, bearings bank, and it was a good time to be called Nick Lincoln, because Nick Leeson is also from Watford. So people don't you're who Nick Lincoln. Nick Leeson from what a couple of clients were in the same year at his school, parliamentary school. He's very you know, he admits he did wrong, but. It's quite
entertaining. And it just, you know, takes you back to that time and what he did and how he got away with it is very stuffy, old kind of bank, and they just didn't have any duty. I mean, their systems were just absolutely unbelievably bad.
There's a good film with a good film with you, McGregor.
You McGregor, it's brilliant, actually. Yeah, really good. Yeah. The day he everything goes very shift. He's like, we need to leave. Kind of now he expose his own to computer,
like he went on the run, didn't he?
Keep on running, I'm just gonna run. Yeah. Then eventually, I think they got to Germany, waiting for him on the runway, he
managed, he was chairman of Galway City Football Club for a few years, a good few years, for how that happened. Only, yeah, it doesn't
say where, but lives in Ireland, yeah. Okay, so that's me done.
I'm gonna put my culture corner is it's putting two things together, which we've mentioned before. We've been, I think Andy talked about my first million that podcast has been some great episode is definitely one of the best podcasts around, I think, very interesting guests for business, for business, business owners and entrepreneurial people and but the most recent episode is the had will Gadara, that's how you pronounce it on the author of the book, which, again, we've
mentioned before. I think all of us have read his book, excellent, excellent book. Unreasonable hospitality ran what became the best restaurant in the world, 11 Madison Avenue, incredible restaurant in New York City. But it didn't start out like that, that way, and
just so many insights. And if you haven't read the book, just tune into the podcast and listen to what will Gadara has to say about business building, about going the extra mile for your clients and customers, about hyper personalization and your service delivery. Meaning, you know, the book's incredible for how they just created something which became the best in the world. And I was just reflecting on it in the world, we're
banging on about AI. AI is going to change everything, and AI will automate things a lot, a lot of the boring, repetitive tasks, but if you're able to, therefore use more capacity, more time, just to deliver just an extraordinary service experience, and this might link into some of your things. Nick as well, in the past, on our meat and potatoes today, because everything becomes referable.
That's just, I mean, if you ever went to that restaurant, you'd be telling everyone about it, because it because it was just so ridiculous how good it was. So that I do think there was lots of lessons in this podcast episode for financial planners, as you grow your business, want to be unique. Want to attract more of your ideal customer from someone else who's done it really successfully. So it's well worth tuning out.
People won't remember what you what you do. They'll remember how you made them feel exactly he's very good. Sorry.
Andy, oh, is that your point? Nick, no, fine. Just, just, just on the same theme. There's an awesome show on Disney plus called the bear restaurant in Chicago, then then turns into a Michelin star restaurant. It is insane. It's an absolutely amazing show. So strong recommendation if you're looking for something to watch on TV, over to you, Carlos, to see us out.
Very good. Sorry, Nick Do do you want to say something?
My point hands up, there is a
glitch that Riverside told me about this at this time of day account. Raise the hand.
Come on, get us out of our
misery. More. Morgan Housel was on the MEB Faber show. Our Mel Faber show, is it? Yeah, really good. He's a new book Morgan. Morgan just gets it. He's like, he's like, almost our, our God for for lifestyle, financial planning, maybe
close personal friend of Andy and I, as we mentioned
before, any drunk, drunken lunches with him. He's
in London
with do you know he mentioned, he mentions, the podcast has been 10 million purchases of the psychology of money, 10.
I know it's crazy, isn't it? Mental? Sorry. His new book calls about spending, isn't
it? Yeah.
What's it called? Yeah, I
didn't listen to the book yet, so I think it's how to spend your wealth, or something like that. But he just goes through a couple of really, really important points about, you know, enough is different for everybody. And you know, your kind of backstory to, you know, kind of guides what enough is for you and whatever. But also, then the whole retiring with purpose, he touches on that as well. It's a really engaging he's just brilliant. He's, you can listen
to art. He's a great communicator. Yeah, spending money. The art of spending money, is it? It's his third book, actually, psychology of money, as you say, it's the biggest seller, 10 million. Wow, that's amazing. And he had same as ever, which I personally thought was better than the psychology of money for various reasons, but for the masses, the psychology money is great. And then the next one, the art of spending money. Third trilogy,
yeah. So listen to the podcast, but I'll be definitely getting the book. I think he's a brilliant communicator, so look forward to that one. I would say everybody should listen.
Very good. I would just say as well, just in fine, we all. Of us listen to a lot of podcasts, watch a lot of like YouTube, read books, all that stuff.
These are the these. We've distilled these down every two weeks to the very best that we found. I really encourage. I always wondered if Does anyone ever go to the show notes? Link it that, you know, check the link, download, listen. These are these are all good quality, and we've all agreed that if we haven't come across anything, we just don't mention. Don't mention it. Don't say
it. It's funny. You say that because I had two other things in and I was a bit mayor, but I not know. And I actually listened to this one last night. All right, this one is worthwhile. Yeah, exactly
that. Have been episodes where we
don't have something that's good enough, we don't include it. So TRAPPIST, we're not just putting this in there for filler time.
Well, well, well, someone did put in IKEA fucking wardrobes one time.
So yeah, I'd say bring back the IKEA wardrobes.
All right. All right, you rabble. We're 93 minutes in. Shoot me. There you go, dear TRAPPIST episode slides down the you bend a farther time. Thank you for your precious time. Please do leave a review on iTunes. Six out of five stars is mandatory, or your podcast app of choice. But I think that's pretty much it. The YouTube channel is still going, still getting well over 1300
subscribers. Now you're probably getting annoying little adverts coming to you too if you watch us on trap, but that's because we just make a successful people, and that's the price you pay to be able to look at and by the way, and we'll see you on the other side.
Good bye,
goodbye. I'm gonna be getting you boys mouth taping, and
I dropped an F. I'm sorry about that, boys, it's been a while
since we've done one. I think it's only fair. Yeah, it's fine, okay, it's good. It's funny. What always ends up to being just almost exactly 19.