Merry Christmas from Acumen: Our year in review

Christmas 2022 might feel a little different as we have experienced plenty of change this year – not least because for the first time in many of our lives, we will be watching The Kings Speech on Christmas Day. However, one thing that will always stay the same is our dedication to our clients and passion for financial advice. Discover what happened this year for Acumen Financial Partnership.

News & its impact on the financial world

In the year we celebrated Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee we mourned her passing and acknowledged her unfaltering dedication to duty. Now we are singing a different version of the National Anthem, QCs have become KCs, £80bn worth of bank notes need replacing –in fact, did you know that the monarch wasn’t even featured on banknotes until 1960?

Over 600 brands previously entitled to use the Royal Warrant must be fervently hoping that King Charles looks kindly on them too.

This year too is the first year we haven’t sent Christmas cards with 100% of the money allocated being sent to The Hive Youth Centre in Birkenhead -more of this later.

As for the political world, 10 and 11 Downing Street could both have benefitted from revolving doors, with Liz Truss completing her tenure in No 10 in record time.

Acumen achievements and awards

2022 will certainly go down as “a challenge” for investment markets and we have found that our regular emailed Newsletters, which provide up to date commentary and sound advice for clients have been very welcome.

The Newsletters have, in the main, been written by our IFA Daniel Frampton, who started his career on a CII Apprenticeship here at Acumen and has recently graduated as a Fellow of the Personal Finance Society.

Dan has become a regular contributor on Radio Merseyside too, most recently to explain (in “plain English”) how and why interest rate hikes are used to control inflation.

Lucy Molina took on a brand new role in Marketing for us, alongside her work as a Financial Planning Co-ordinator working with IFA Alex Dunk – if you check our website you will see how her input has brought a bright new look to its pages.

She and Jon have also been visiting and supporting The Hive, finding ways in which our whole team can support this amazing charity to inspire disadvantaged young people and yesterday she and Jon delivered a boot-load of donations that our team have put together for The Hive Food Bank.

Since our last Christmas message, Jill Taylor has been a new addition to the team joined us from Barclays Bank and she is now the first person you will meet on visiting our Burscough office. Then in September, we welcomed Kellie Williamson – who recently relocated to the North West from Leicester with a wealth of pension and investment experience. Jill and Kellie both join Acumen’s Business Support team headed up by Julie Murphy.

In the summer the Acumen team was a Finalist in the Red Rose Awards held at the Winter Gardens in Blackpool. This prestigious award ceremony involves a very testing presentation and a panel interview (think Dragon’s Den) and we also made it into the Vouched For Top Rated Advisers 2022 (based on client’s personal experience of our service) for the 4^th year running.

We wish you and yours all the very best for Christmas and the New Year and we will look forward to being here for you again when we open our doors in 2023.

Want to get in touch? Pop us a message and we will get back to you in the new year.