This year will undoubtedly be one for the history books; however, I have intentionally decided not to speak about Covid in this newsletter as we have all had a tough year and are coming to terms with this new normal. I prefer to highlight the positives of 2020.

One of our goals at Chartered is to grow the Chartered Family. While we run numerous initiatives within the business, including a very successful Articled Planner programme, we seldom get an opportunity to benchmark ourselves against our peers. Over the past 13 years, we have entered several competitions run by the Financial Planning Institute (FPI). We have been the proud winners of the Financial Planner of the Year competition twice, and have been a runner up six times. This year the FPI introduced the FPI Approved Professional Practice of the Year Award. At a first attempt, we were proud to be awarded as a top three finalist. As the saying goes: if you are not learning, you are not growing, and in a fast-moving world if you are not growing, you are decaying. We use these competitions as a call to action to ensure that we continually futureproof the business and carry on being thought leaders and a prominent player in the financial planning industry.

In this past year, we have successfully opened our Cape Town office. Tom Brukman and his team have made good inroads into the Cape, especially considering the challenging year we have encountered. Part of our strategy has been opening offices in areas in South Africa where we have a significant client base.

We used to joke about people “semigrating” from Gauteng to the Cape, but unfortunately in the last few years this has changed, and we have witnessed a growing trend of people leaving South Africa. Included in this are an increasing number of clients and their families. Historically we have referred clients to other practices globally. However, as this trend is
likely to continue, we have decided to support the opening of a partner firm in Mauritius which can take care of the growing number of clients living abroad. From an estate planning perspective, this also simplifies leaving assets to children living in different parts of the world. We look forward to sharing the other exciting opportunities that this initiative creates in the new year.

Some more exciting news is the successful launch of Chartered Invest. This business has been in the making for the past four years. One of our roles as a Financial Planner is to take the complex world of finance and investing and make it simple and understandable to our clients. This was one of the primary drivers for this business. We can now house all your investments on one platform, using one administrator. This means you can get one statement from one company with all of your various investments, including Old Mutual Multi-Managers, PortfolioMetrix and any other unit trusts you may have. As a family, there is also a fee saving to having all your investments in one place. A few of our clients have moved onto this new platform, and again we look forward to discussing these benefits with you in 2021.

As the saying goes, never allow a crisis to go to waste. We have indeed found every opportunity to make the most of a tough year and have adapted well under the circumstances. Thank you to all our staff and clients for your unwavering support and contribution to Chartered this year. We are ready for 2021 and look forward to applying the learnings from this year into the future.

Warm regards
John