Author: Aisha Mahmood

The AFH restrictive covenant case, formally cited as AFH Independent Financial Services Ltd and another v Baker and another [2026] EWHC 1674 (Comm), has delivered a set of findings that any firm buying financial advice businesses should study with care. The judgment, handed down in the Commercial Court, arose after adviser Samantha Baker left AFH Independent Financial Services Limited (AFH IFS), prompting a significant number of her clients to follow her to the firm she subsequently joined, Regentia Lifestyle Planning Limited. According to Citywire, AFH alleged that Baker broke a restrictive covenant by taking 121 clients with her to Regentia…

UK retiree wealth transfer plans are undergoing a quiet but consequential shift, with new data from Quilter showing that family support now absorbs one in every six pounds a retiree spends each year. The findings arrive at a moment when both the tax treatment of inherited pensions and the future of social care are in flux, adding fresh urgency to conversations that many advisers are not yet having with the right people in the room. How Retiree Wealth Transfer Plans Are Changing Quilter’s second annual Retirement Lifestyle Report, based on a survey of 5,002 UK retirees, puts the average annual…

FNZ, the global wealth management platform, has made the FNZ interim CEO appointment official, confirming that group chair Stephen Welch will assume the role of executive group chair on an interim basis following the exit of Blythe Masters. The board has simultaneously opened a search for a permanent chief executive.Masters, who had led the business since August 2024 when she succeeded FNZ founder Adrian Durham, will remain available to the group in an advisory capacity for six months to support an orderly handover. According to Bloomberg Law, Masters is a former JPMorgan Chase executive, a background that brought considerable institutional…

The Bríd Meaney Royal London appointment marks a considered structural shift at the mutual, as the business combines its customer and commercial functions into a single executive role. Meaney joins as chief customer officer and takes a seat on Royal London’s group executive committee, succeeding Bernie Hickman, who had covered the position on an interim basis. A career spanning insurance, audit and international markets Meaney brings close to three decades of life insurance experience to the role. Most recently she served as chief risk officer at Standard Life, a position she assumed in September 2024 after holding two earlier roles…

The case for China and India in emerging markets has quietly strengthened while investor attention has drifted elsewhere. Developed economies are grappling with rising borrowing costs that threaten both consumer spending and the AI-driven capital expenditure cycle that has sustained equity valuations, yet two of the world’s largest growth economies continue to be passed over by portfolio managers searching for returns closer to home.Emerging markets overall are almost 10% ahead of developed markets for the year to date, but that outperformance has arrived despite China and India, not because of them. The MSCI China index is down 11% in yuan…

The UK inflation rate hike debate has moved sharply back into focus after the Office for National Statistics confirmed that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose by 3.1% in the 12 months to August 2026, up from 2.9% in July, with the monthly figure increasing by 0.2%. For investors managing income-dependent portfolios or drawing on a SIPP in retirement, the implications of this number are material and immediate. What the CPI data shows Core inflation, which strips out energy and food, held steady at 2.6% in August, unchanged from July. Within the broader basket, the goods annual rate moved from…

UK annuity providers have deployed £22.8bn into UK productive assets across 2024 and 2025, according to the Association of British Insurers (ABI), marking the first two-year milestone of their annuity providers £100bn pledge to channel capital into the domestic economy. Of that total, £14.8bn, representing 65% of the sum, has gone into private and unlisted assets. Where the capital has gone under the annuity providers £100bn pledge Real estate attracted the largest single allocation at £9bn, encompassing affordable and social housing, student accommodation and related property. Utilities, including energy and water supply, accounted for £5.3bn, while transport, storage and construction…

Fintel’s mortgage acquisition strategy moved into sharper focus on 15 September, when the fintech and support services group published its half-year results and chief executive Matt Timmins confirmed that the mortgage market is now its primary target for both acquisitions and technology investment. The group is also projecting organic growth of around 5% for the full year, despite reporting 2% organic revenue growth in the first half of 2026. Revenue growth holds steady, recurring income leads the way Continuing revenue for the half year rose 5.3% to £38.6m, while adjusted EBITDA increased 16.6% to £12.4m. The figures that will interest…

Women aged 55 to 59 hold around 54% of the pension wealth accumulated by men of the same age, according to new research published by the Pensions Policy Institute (PPI), with the gender pension gap women experience worsening measurably since the PPI’s previous analysis. For anyone managing a retirement portfolio, or advising someone approaching drawdown, those numbers deserve careful attention. How the gender pension gap women face has widened over time The PPI’s latest report, The Underpensioned: Updating the Gender Pension Gap, sponsored by Marsh, puts the savings shortfall at 48% between men and women in its 2025 publication. That…