Parmenion Capital Partners: Developing our own IT solutions explains growth
The last year has helped reinforce Parmenion’s commitment to advisers, something which appears to be fuelling the platform and discretionary fund manager’s success.
Richard Goodall, a partner at Parmenion, admitted that achieving a five-star rating last year had incentivised the company to carry on doing what it was doing before – only better.
He said: “We give the advisers what they want, and that is value. Getting the award last year gave us the focus to keep doing what we were doing. It was a reinforcement of what we do so that advisers find us easy to work with.”
Twelve months ago the platform and discretionary fund manager had £750m of assets under management and more than 1,600 advisers. As of the end of October this year it had £1.35bn assets under management and 2,500 advisers signed up.
Parmenion, which launched seven years ago, based its service proposition on its ability to develop its own technology and tailor it both to advisers and to the end clients.
In the last year it has introduced tactical income and target-date portfolios as well as some adviser software enhancements.
There was also the launch of its own Sipp wrapper, as well as Interact, its basic advice proposition, in June.
This system was the UK’s first, fully integrated online simplified advice service. It was developed in-house over two years, and was designed to work within and alongside the business models of advisers.
Mr Goodall said: “The reason why we have grown is because of the value we bring to advisers, and we bring it to them in a flexible way.”
Owning its own technology remains the key Parmenion’s success.
“We also have our own investment management capabilities and our own custodial service, both still unusual in the industry,” Mr Goodall added.
Bringing such technology to market requires the people to programme and develop it. Mr Goodall said: “You have to have good people and allow them space for creativity and flair. Our size means we are still able to do that.”
Royal London Asset Management: Never too big to talk with advisers
Despite having over £77bn assets under management, RLAM’s head of marketing likes to keep things personal.
Tracy Fennell said the asset manager keeps the lines of communication with advisers open at all times. “We aim to be quick to communicate with them when things happen. A few weeks ago, for example things were going on in the bond market and within hours we had sent out a brief to advisers telling them our thoughts and what we were doing.
“We are not the largest asset manager – I’m not saying we are always quick off the block, but we do aim to make sure we let advisers know what we are up to. We are one of the few to send out monthly briefings.”
