Quill PR is delighted to have been shortlisted in the Investment Week Fund Manager of the Year Awards Marketing and PR Partner of the Year (Asset and Wealth Management) category.
The new category has been introduced to recognise groups supporting asset and wealth management firms in the UK.
The nomination reflects work in client service/support and initiatives in the industry to help champion investing or help the wider asset management and wealth sector.
Quill PR has been shortlisted for the Citywealth Brand & Marketing Awards 2025 under the category: Communications & PR Agency of the Year.
The awards recognise the best brands emerging in a consolidating financial industry, highlight the contributions of hundreds of marketing, business development and public relations professionals within the wealth management industry, and recognise the teams who excel in supporting the business profit and navigate the reputational risk for their organisations seamlessly.
Our friends and associates are encouraged to vote and a panel of judges makes the majority decision.
The judging panel includes Lawrence Gosling, head of PR, Comms and Content at Artemis Investment Management, Tracey Rodgers, head of client intelligence at Ogier and Kim Lansdown, director of strategy at Fladgate.
Sam Emery, managing director at Quill PR said: “We are delighted to receive a nomination for these prestigious awards for the second year running. It is gratifying to be recognized within such a competitive field.”
Journalists’ inboxes were heaving under the weight of comments on the Bank of England’s announcement that the interest rate was being cut 25 points to 5%.
And frankly the industry response is understandable given the long-awaited cut after years of high rates.
The cut will prove only a chink of light for those on variable mortgage interest rates but experts are seeing encouraging prospects for markets.
Emma Moriarty (pictured above), portfolio manager at CG Asset Management says: “While not completely unexpected, today’s rate cut by the Bank of England has buoyed the gilt markets, and has also improved wider equity market sentiment. Listed funds in some of the longer duration asset classes – such as property and infrastructure – have been clear beneficiaries of this.
“While the Monetary Policy Committee did not give guidance on the pace and quantum of rate cuts to come, markets are now pricing in an additional two cuts for 2024. This seems in line with the downward direction of travel in headline inflation to date. Looking ahead, the key question will be how many rate cuts the Bank can reasonably make from here.
“Despite falling headline inflation, wage growth and services inflation remain sticky and elevated, and the Bank has warned that headline inflation looks set to increase over the latter part of this year. In a similar vein, consumption and growth have been stronger than expected, and the new Labour government’s focus on state-directed growth may mean that inflation – and interest rates – need to stay higher for longer than markets currently expect.”
Stuart Widdowson, portfolio manager at Odyssean Investment Trust says the cut will support investors increasingly looking to small to medium sized UK companies as market sentiment turns in the sector.
“Until recently people were very reluctant to look at new investments. What we hear from brokers is that people are interested now: it’s not just M&A activity and the mood music of our peer group is generally more positive.
“We, and other fund managers, are seeing shareholders and potential shareholders over the last quarter more open to putting assets into the small to mid-cap sector now and that’s a significant change from Q4 last year.”
Widdowson says investors may also be looking for stocks with a global reach beyond the Magnificent Seven.
“We do think one of the key catalysts for people reassessing UK equities is basically the momentum trade of the big seven stopping. We’re seeing people being open to invest in the UK and small to mid-caps and the UK is seen as a relatively safe haven now compared with the rest of Europe.”
As Emma alludes, the Monetary Policy Committee was cautious in explaining it’s decision to avoid any hopes of this being a start to a continued fall in rates.
It said: “Monetary policy will need to continue to remain restrictive for sufficiently long until the risks to inflation returning sustainably to the 2% target in the medium term have dissipated further. The Committee continues to monitor closely the risks of inflation persistence and will decide the appropriate degree of monetary policy restrictiveness at each meeting.”
But, hey, let’s take the chink of light – and hope for more to come.
Stephanie Spicer is head of content at Quill PR
The state pension has been in the news a lot lately with much moaning about the delayed payment of pensions to women of a certain age and different levels of payment to men and women of a certain age.
The Women Against State Pension Inequality (WASPI) argues that women born on or after 6 April 1951 to 5 April 1953 were informed too late in the day that their state retirement age was increasing, leaving them little time to re-plan for their retirement.
Then there was the recent annual rise in the state pension of 8.5% (matching wage growth which was higher than the two other measures of either inflation or 2.5% – the so-called triple lock). While this was the largest many have seen, it is not being uniformly applied over all those in receipt of the state pension. Individuals who reached retirement age before 2016 are in receipt of the old style state pension comprised of two elements: the basic state pension (based on national insurance contributions) and the additional state pension (based on earnings and benefit claims). The shortfall arises because the triple lock rise only applies to the basic state pension. The additional element only rises by inflation ie 6.7% and not the 8.5%.
Of course, no-one should be relying on the state pension – on its own it will support only a fairly impoverished retirement. The state pension should be considered just one element of one’s income in retirement.
While the state pension has always been relatively egalitarian, amounts of private and company pensions often vary for men and women. Statistically men tend to have bigger pension pots than women. According to research from Legal & General, the pensions gender gap starts initially at 16% but ‘can double by the time women reach their 40s. By the time they’re in their fifties it could be 51% and finally when they reach retirement their pension savings could be 55% smaller on average’ than their male counterpart.
Many people may not have had access to a company pension or their wages have been too low to build up a meaningful private pension. Some may have not had long enough in the work force to save adequately. Common reasons for the disparity in pension pots between men and women include the fact that women are or were more often those at home looking after children or other dependents.
The latter situation could be the same today. But with the introduction of auto-enrolment meaning individuals have to actively opt out of a company pension, the argument of no access and no employer contributions wanes – although not for those under age 22 or earning less than £10,000 per year.
In the financial year 2022-23, 0.8% of workers opted out of their workplace pension scheme, according to Gov.uk. The cost of living crisis hasn’t helped. Without nannying too much employers need to highlight to their staff importance of staying invested in a company pension – it is not just the employee contribution, but the employer contribution and the ‘free money’ of the tax relief applied on contributions.
The state pension system is devilishly complicated and only the government can change that! Now is the time for a campaign by the government to explain how it works, how the employer pension system works, how private pensions work – frankly how pensions work so that, come every individual’s retirement they have a pension that does work.
Stephanie Spicer is head of content, Quill PR
Photo by Francesco Gallarotti on Unsplash
Several Quill clients were successful at the recent Investment Week 25th Investment Company of the Year Awards 2023, in association with the AIC, at an awards ceremony in London.
The awards recognise managers which have delivered consistently for investors across a variety of sectors.
The shortlists for the awards were constructed using scores provided by the AIC, using Morningstar data. Investment companies needed a three-year track record to 30 June 2023 to be shortlisted and a market cap of £50m or above.
Within each sector, companies had their cumulative fair NAV returns calculated over three discrete periods in sterling terms. Returns over the 12 months to 30 June 2023 were given a 40% weighting, the 12 months to 30 June 2022 were given a 30% weighting, while the 12 months to 30 June 2021 accounted for 20% of the overall score. The final 10% weight was given to the full cumulative NAV return over the three years to 30 June 2023.
These scores were added to give a single score out of 100, the highest of which were considered for the shortlists. Winners were then chosen by a judging panel comprised of IFAs, wealth managers, fund managers and analysts considering qualitative as well as quantitative factors.
Odyssean Investment Trust (OIT) won the UK Smaller Companies award. Alliance Trust (ATST) was the Global award winner and AVI Global Trust (AGT) was highly commended in the Global award category.
Investment Week said: “Against a challenging backdrop, our judges this year were keen to highlight consistent performers who have managed to navigate turbulent market conditions. Discount management was a major focus this year, as well as effective communications with investors and use of the investment company structure.”
Photo: Gregor Stewart, Chairman of Alliance Trust, and Craig Baker, WTW’s Chief Investment Officer, receiving the award
It was confirmed the following day, that the BBC story that Rishi Sunak’s government would be rolling back some of its net zero commitments, including the ban on sales of new petrol and diesel cars being pushed back from the proposed 2030 to 2035, and a delay in phasing out gas boilers, was correct.
The leak and subsequent government announcement of a slowing of the pace to targets, comes on top of what, while the title of this article may seem hyperbolic, is not far from the truth after the summer many have experienced this year. Here in the UK, we were met with the typical British gloomy summer of wind and rain, whilst our European and American counterparts have been met with drastic extremes.
It was recorded that July was the hottest average month on record, with many parts of southern Europe reaching unbearable temperatures of 50 degrees. Accompanying these temperatures were raging wildfires, devastating large areas of Italy, Greece, Croatia, Canada, and Hawaii. These events should be ringing the alarm bells louder than ever on the effect that climate change is having; with the destruction of agriculture, homes, and threatened health of locals, with deteriorating air quality and insufficient infrastructure.
While the effects of climate change are more urgent than ever, it seems that in 2023 ESG funds are now facing the effects of global markets, and ESG may not be at the top of every fund’s lists.
Reuters reported in August that ESG investments have been out of favour with UK investors, with a staggering £1 billion in funding having been pulled since May because of continued interest rate rises and persistent inflation, leading investors to seek more stable grounds for returns.
Figures from global funds network Calastone show that the amount investors sold of their ESG funds snowballed to a total of £1.96 billion by the end of August. This has also been reflected by consumers, with The Telegraph reporting that the ‘number of people making decisions with a ‘’planet first’’ mindset nearly halved from 24pc to 13pc between June 2022 and April this year’.
Once the front runners of global change with the momentum of the Paris Agreement in 2015 behind us, seemingly, under Rishi Sunak’s government, matters of ESG in the UK have taken a back seat. While we need to ensure our own energy supplies in light of the Russian war on Ukraine, the new North Sea oil licenses that Sunak has approved have faced huge backlash from both members of his own party and environmental groups, urging him to look at renewable energy sources – with Sunak claiming that it is “entirely consistent with our plan to get to net zero”.
While Sunak was widely criticised for his move, London Mayor Sadiq Khan hasn’t fared much better at the other end of the spectrum of ESG matters. The controversial ultra low emission zone (ULEZ), aiming to improve the air quality in London, with vehicles not meeting emissions standards being charged £12.50 a day, or a fine, has seen Khan suffer a drop in popularity given that the charges are hitting those who are unable to either pay the charge or afford to get a car that is compliant.
Sunak says the government is still committed to reaching net zero by 2050 but in a “more proportionate way”, however it is increasingly evident that the UK is struggling to find the right balance between the needs of its people and achieving its net zero targets.
Emma Taylor is account executive at Quill PR
Photo by Matt Palmer on Unsplash
As interest rates rise again, those coming off fixed rate mortgages and looking down the barrel of a premium hike of hundreds of pounds and those facing the cost of living ‘heat or eat’ options, must be despairing. With families cutting out essentials, not to mention pension savings or luxuries to fund the cost of living, it is little surprise that financial and health protection insurances will be cut also.
In the six months to January 2023, 13% of adults or 6.2m people who had held insurance or protection policies in May 2022 cancelled at least one of their policies and/or reduced the level of cover on at least one of their policies specifically to save money due to the rising cost of living, according to the Financial Conduct Authority’s Financial Lives Survey. 23% of policies cancelled were life cover, 10% critical illness, 9% private medical insurance (PMI) and 5% health cash plans.
Protection has for ever been regarded as a bit of a luxury item – life insurance just about gets accepted but for income protection, PMI and critical illness insurance – advisers constantly struggle to get the message about the importance of such cover across at the best of times. Or if they do get the message across, persuading clients to take out policies (and pay for the premiums) is another hurdle too few manage to get over.
It shouldn’t take a crisis in the NHS to push the argument for PMI but it should help. But does it? For some, affordability might well be an issue. So, it behoves us to look to company supported PMI. Or to look to the much overlooked (as often considered the poor relation) health cash plans. Significantly cheaper, these still provide cover for many of the health services we all use at some point: dental and optical costs, physiotherapy. Employer sponsored health cash plans are a large chunk of the market, and could be considered a good investment in employee healthcare and maintenance.
Laing Buisson, the independent sector healthcare market data provider agrees that: ‘As we look to the future, the private health cover sector faces two contrasting drivers. On one hand, limited access to NHS dentistry and the growing wait times for NHS treatment continue to fuel the demand for private health cover. On the other hand, the decline in disposable household income, expected to persist into 2024 and beyond, acts as a counter-driver of demand for private health cover.’
Who knows what the answer is, but it calls for individuals and their advisers to find the best way possible to prioritise and secure what protection insurances they can for themselves and to review the level of cover they do have as soon as they are able to adjust to provide meaningful cover in the event of losing income or suffering poor health.
Thankfully providers are seeing the potential from obligations under the FCA’s new Consumer Duty standards to protect consumers and require firms to put customer needs first.
Siobhan Barrow, UK Distribution Director at Royal London said: “Protection insurance can be often overlooked but the Consumer Duty will change this, moving it from a more transactional sale to become a much more integral part of the holistic advice conversation.”
Stephanie Spicer is head of content at Quill PR
Photo by Craig Whitehead on Unsplash
There are four problems zipping around currently that could be marshalled into a very good solution: how to encourage the young to invest; how to encourage investors to invest in start-up, small companies and UK plc generally, how to encourage pension schemes to do the same, and how to encourage companies to list on the London Stock Exchange and base operations here.
Each issue carries its own hurdles.
Investing is not top of many young people’s lists – spare cash is not that readily available – and yet the attraction of cryptocurrency offers excitement it seems and the potential for fast or vast profits. If cryptocurrency is attractive, this suggests the young are prepared to take some risks with their investing – so let’s try to educate them about things which could be deemed ‘exciting’ but are more tangible, i.e., small company, start-up, tech, entrepreneurial businesses looking for funding.
Pension funds have a lot of money to invest but for various reasons are not investing in less liquid and more risky assets and very often also not in the UK. Calls are being made to change this mindset although it has to be borne in mind that broadly this pension money sits under two sets of policy: defined benefit schemes, which guarantee the pension member their pension and defined contribution schemes – which don’t. For the latter each individual can choose their level of risk. If that individual has forty or fifty years to invest over, why should they not consider the potential growth options which stem from scale-up businesses?
That’s always supposing UK businesses see a future in the UK. Lots don’t because they see the opportunity for better valuations elsewhere and lots of companies that would like to come and list in London and present opportunities for investors don’t, because of regulatory restrictions. Citing the problems British fintech company Revolut has had in getting a full banking licence in the UK, Professor Stefan Allesch-Taylor, entrepreneur and Professor of Practice at King’s College London recently wrote: ‘Why do we care about the toings and froings between a multi-billion-pound UK fintech company and our regulators? Simply because other companies considering London as a home will be watching the process, whatever the outcome.’
Pictured above, Nicholas Lyons The Lord Mayor of London, head of the City of London Corporation (until his term ends and he returns to his role as chairman of Phoenix Group) in its report Powerful Pensions Unlocking Defined Contribution capital for UK tech growth March 2023 has written: ‘If we want to keep firms here in the UK, we need to make sure they can get the investment here in the UK.’ And he proposes this is facilitated by a Future Growth Fund: ‘Such a fund would enable investment via private equity into fintech, life sciences, biotech, and green technology. By channelling this investment, we can create growth and in turn support jobs and prosperity across the whole UK economy,’ he writes. He proposes the investment comes from the defined contribution pension schemes.
All the hurdles to these issues have the same root – that of risk. Regulators, businesses, investors have to work together to calculate that risk and then make a calculated risk, to benefit all.
Stephanie Spicer is head of content at Quill PR.
Photo courtesy of City of London Corporation
World Environment Day 2023 (5 June) celebrating its 50th year turned its attention to one of the largest pollutants in the world, plastic.
Within the last decade, plastic production has increased rapidly, amounting to roughly 400 million tonnes per year, a figure which is foreseen to double by 2040 . Researchers estimate that 12 million tonnes of plastic ends up in our oceans each year. These figures alone are shocking, not helped by the current turbulent social and economic backdrop globally, and pushback against ESG regulation proposals (particularly in the US).
However, through the actions of the United Nations, the tide might finally be turning on plastic pollution.
In March 2022, at the resumed fifth session of the United Nations Environment Assembly, the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee set out a historic resolution to end plastic pollution and forge an international legally binding agreement due by 2024, of which all 193 UN member states have signed in favour for.
Earlier this year, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) released a report ahead of the second round of negotiations in Paris (29 May – 2 June). It set out the roadmap for solutions to beating plastic pollution and creating a circular economy, highlighting the need for governments, companies, and markets to come together to create deep rooted policy and regulation.
The roadmap has three simple, yet key targets needed to make the shift towards a circular economy.
Alongside the prospect of a renewed, thriving ecosystem, there is also a significant economic and societal opportunity. The roadmap proposes that by 2040, industries could save up to $1.3 trillion; currently a staggering $2.2 trillion goes towards virgin plastic production. Also supporting societal needs, it is projected that there will be 12 million new jobs, as a circular economy requires a larger human workforce, compared to the current linear economy.
Emma Taylor is Account Executive at Quill PR
Photo by tanvi sharma on Unsplash