Frenkel Topping Group (LON:FEN) Chief Executive Officer Richard Fraser caught up with DirectorsTalk for an exclusive interview to discuss momentum in H1, their Deputy Day conference and what to expect looking forward.
Q1: Throughout 2018, you’ve made a number of investments into people, academy, marketing and also IT and it seems to have resulted in a great momentum throughout the second half of last year. Richard, how has that momentum carried through to H1 2019?
A1: We’ve continued with that and our half-year results are showing that our revenues are up 14% in the first half of this year compared to last year, recurring revenue up by 10% and our profits from operations before tax of 111% with new business up 30%.
So, that momentum that we gained in the second half of last year has continued into the first half of this year in all aspects of the business and certainly, the investment we made over the last couple of years into people, systems, marketing is really paying dividends now with where we’re getting to.
Assets under Management are up 12% to £851 million, with assets into our own Discretionary Fund Management business up 11% to £345 million.
So, very very pleased with the half-year numbers and where we’ve got to at the half-year with our results that were out this morning.
Q2: I also see that Paul Lewis from Money Box chaired your Deputy Day, what can you tell us about that?
A2: Frenkel Topping Group support the government’s recent move to recognise financial abuse under UK Domestic Violence law and see this as an important step to help protect those that are most vulnerable in our society.
Earlier this year, we hosted our 10th annual Deputy Day Conference which is for lawyers who particularly operate as professional deputies for people with acquired brain injuries and cerebral palsy under the jurisdiction of the Court of Protection.
Paul was there to chair the Deputy Day because the whole theme of the Deputy Day this year was protecting the vulnerable against financial abuse and, of course, that’s one of his big things on his radio programme. So, he chaired the day and, actually, throughout the day, said that we were one of his preferred IFA’s of choice and has also commented upon that on his radio programme on a Saturday morning as well.
We were very grateful to get him and it proved to be a really good day for everybody who attended.
Q3: Some great momentum that’s carried on, what can we expect from Frenkel Topping looking forward?
A3: I think more of the same, to be honest with you. We’re continuing with the development of our digitalisation of the business which will improve the customer journey and how they’re treated. From my perspective, the key thing when we speak to our clients is, we want them to become advocates of the business, we want them to become promotors of the business so that they talk about us in a very favourable way.
So, we’re going to continue with the whole customer journey progress, continue with our marketing. The Expert Witness work being our USP which is where we get our future AuM pipeline from, we also continue to drive that service out into the lawyers who are dealing with these large clinical negligence/personal injury claims.
Overlaying that, we are still very much looking to the right business to acquire to our M&A strategy. We’ve got a number of prospects that we’re looking at, at the moment, and would hope at some point in the next coming months we’ll be able to make an announcement on the progress we’ve made their as well.
