Hello, everyone, and Welcome to The St. James's Place 2021 Full Year Results Q&A Session. My name is Nadia and I'll be coordinating the call today. If you would like to ask a question at the end of the brief presentation, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypads. I will now hand over to your host, Andrew Croft, CEO of St. James's Place to begin. Andrew, please go ahead.
Yeah. Morning, everyone, and thank you for taking the time to join us this morning. Hope you've had an opportunity to look at the pre-recorded webcast. I'm joined here today with the majority of my executive team. B efore going straight into questions, a brief sort of summary of the results. Now, clearly, the strong flows announced in January have fed through to this strong financial result. I guess the two key highlights is the 50% increase in the underlying cash result, which has driven the 34% increase in the full year dividend. I mean, naturally, we're very, very pleased with that outcome, and it's a great start to our 2025 stretching financial targets. At that point, I think we're just gonna open up to questions. Back to you, Nadia.
Thank you. Just as another reminder that star followed by one on your telephone keypads if you would like to ask a question. Our first question today comes from Andrew Sinclair of Bank of America. Andrew, please go ahead. Your line is open.
Thanks. Morning, everyone. Tough take for an asset gatherer to be reporting, but well done. It was another good year. Three from me as usual, if that's okay. Firstly, the growth target that you've reiterated. Good to see your confidence in delivering that. We are in a backdrop of higher inflation. Just really wondered if you could give us some more detail on whether you found extra levers to pull to keep that target on track. Kind of what are the moving parts as inflation's gone higher? Secondly, I think I picked up in the video you said about some normalization of regular withdrawals. Just really how would you think about a normal level?
I think that's been anywhere between about 1.5% and 2.5% of opening AUM over the last decade. It's just helpful to get your insight on that normal level. Thirdly, just on growth, flow growth. I realize you've commented on confidence and the ability to hit the five-year target, but if we can look at 2022 for a moment, consensus, I think is sitting around 7% growth in growth flows for 2022. That's still a pretty good number given such a strong year in 2021. Really just to gauge whether you feel comfortable with consensus sitting around that level. Thanks.
Okay. Thank you, Andrew, and morning to you. I'll just pick up the gross flow number before handing over to Craig to do the costs and retention. As you say, at the moment, consensus for gross flows is at 7%, and we're very confident at this stage that we can meet those expectations, which of course will mean that 7% on top of 27% will still put us well ahead of where we expected to be this time last year when we announced those targets. Very confident in achieving the consensus numbers. I'm just gonna hand over to Craig to do the inflation and normalization withdrawals.
Yeah. Hi, Andrew. The question was our degree of confidence. The degree of confidence is high. We've got a budget for 2022. It's locked and loaded, as they say, and it's fully costed. A lot of what we have is actually it lends itself to the sort of planning that you need in order to have that level of confidence. For the avoidance of doubt, we are committing to a 5% containment in the growth in controllable costs. You're right, there are some inflationary pressures, but it's worth noting that the 5% for us is a net figure. As we continue to invest in the business, we find alternative ways of doing things, we find smarter processes, we can make better use of technology.
There is some netting and grossing going on here, which allows us to contain it to the sort of number you see, while also maintaining that ongoing investment in the business. Hopefully that deals with the question on 5%. Yeah, the normalization, it's very difficult to put a precise figure on it. If you look at the pattern of withdrawals over the last couple of years, they have been very heavily influenced by the environment that we've been in.
In the same way that we've sort of benefited from that environment, because people keep their savings with us, it's likely that as that environment normalizes, people will take advantage of, let's call them spending opportunities that perhaps might not have been there during the course of 2020 and 2021. We're not expecting any kind of sharp change here. We're really just drawing attention to the fact, and we've been, I think, clear about this over the last couple of years, that retention has been quite extraordinary during the course of 2020 and 2021. Now, what should you include? I don't know. You could go back to 2019 and you might regard 2019 as a typical year.
I'm not gonna put a figure on it, but it's really just a reflection of that extraordinary retention that we've benefited from over the last two years.
Thank you. Very helpful. Thank you.
If we could do the next question please, Nadia.
Of course. Our next question comes from David McCann of Numis. David, please go ahead. Your line is open.
Morning, guys, and reiterate the good comments on them from Andy on the results. They were very good. Actually, Andy largely stole the question I had on the inflation as well, but just wanted to dig into that a little bit more. I mean, obviously, when you set that 5% cost growth target last year, presumably you weren't expecting the current kind of level of background inflation. So I'd just like to understand, you know, what was in your kind of modeling, you know, when you set that target. You know, presumably if, you know, we have 2%, 3%, 4% inflation over the whole five-year period, presumably, you know, you're okay with your number. I just wanna understand kind of where the sensitivity to that.
You know, if we did have, you know, real breakout inflation, over the whole five-year period, what level does that 5% number come under a bit of pressure? I guess that's the first question. Yeah, second question, much less significance, I guess. I noticed you appear to have made a small investment in an associate in the period. Can you just give some detail on what that is?
Okay. I'll ask Craig to talk about the inflation point first.
Yeah. Hi, David. You talk about inflation rates of 2%, 3%, 4%. Of course, there's no single figure because one of the things we had to do when we were laying down the 2025 plan is think about individual sensitivities within our cost base. Just to throw a few out there, we are exposed, always have been, always will be, to professional wage inflation. Professional wage inflation behaves differently to, let's say, overarching wage inflation. We've got a pretty big property base. That's not necessarily exposed to inflation because we're locked into longer term leases there. The list goes on. We've got long-term contracts that have inflation clauses within them. There's no particular number that we included within the planning.
If you were to think of it in terms of 2%, 3%, 4%, I don't think you'd be a million miles away. The question as to at what point does it begin to influence our judgment on what the right level would be in a future period. I think that would depend on where it's biting. A n obvious one to call out would be wage inflation. We don't really know what's gonna happen to that over the medium term. I've said we've committed to 2022. If we found that we were in a long-term cycle of high inflation, we would have to update on our plans accordingly when that becomes clear.
Other than that, it's very difficult to be specific 'cause it really would depend on where that inflation looks as if it's gonna bite. The one thing I would say is that I go back to my net and gross points in the answer I gave before, which means that while we should think of it in terms of 5%, it is critical that we also think of it in terms of a net figure. There are other opportunities that we can and will take as time goes on to just improve efficiency within the business, which will help us in an inflationary environment. I think that is something we should have in mind.
Cool. On the small associate, what we do from time to time would be to buy into some of our larger businesses, and I would imagine that that's what you're seeing going through that line. Could we go to the next set of questions please, Nadia? David, thank you for only asking two rather than three. Most unusual.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Andrew Baker of Citi. Andrew, go ahead with your question.
Great. Thank you. Unfortunately, I'm gonna let you down. I'm gonna ask three. I guess the first is just on the 2022 gross flows. You mentioned in your presentation Q1 in particular was a tough comp. Are you able to give an update on what you've seen actually year to date? Do you expect more Q1 growth or necessarily later in the year? Secondly, again, on inflation, but this time, on potential impact to this. I guess on the one hand sort of opportunity costs, price of cash is now a lot higher than on the other hand discretionary income could potentially be lower. Just interested in your thoughts on any impact on flows. Third, just what impact are you expecting from the FCA's work on the new Consumer Duty, which is currently under consultation?
Any thought there would be appreciated. Thank you.
Craig, do you want to pick up the 2022 flow issue first?
Yeah. The tough comparators, just to bring that to life a little bit. Comparators are quite challenging over the last couple of years because of the number of external things that have influenced people's behavior. I don't think we're the only business that would say that. I think, to the extent we can see it, the models that we have access to that the outside world is preparing, you do tend to see that while consensus is showing growth of 7%, that growth is loaded into Q2, Q3, and Q4 rather than Q1. There's a good reason for it. Q1 of 2021 was an extraordinary quarter.
It's also worth having in mind that it was an extraordinary quarter on top of another extraordinary quarter because Q1 of 2020 was also very strong because the pandemic hadn't bitten, and we were benefiting from the results of a highly conclusive general election. I think what most people are taking into account is all of that in reaching the view that that growth, just in comparative terms
It will come about later rather than earlier. I'll just pick up on the next two. Inflation hasn't been a feature in the U.K. economy for some time now. I'm of an age where I can remember inflation and the impact of inflation on people's savings. Our advisors will be spending time with clients and ensuring that they've got the right strategies in place to mitigate its impact. The FCA is looking to focus on improving client outcomes. We're very supportive of that, and that's at the heart of what we do. It's going to be around formal reporting that will be required to show how we're delivering positive client outcomes. Of course, we're already doing that in the Unit Trust through the VAST statements.
It's clearly still confidential, but expected to come into being later this year. Nadia, should we move on to the next questions, please?
Perfect. Our next question comes from Larissa van Deventer of Barclays. Larissa, please go ahead. Your line is open.
Morning, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. I'll do three as well, please. My first one is on the competitive landscape for advice in the U.K. We saw another U.K. company announce its plans to launch, you know, further into the advice market this week. How well protected do you see your business from these market entrants? I think particularly given that, obviously for you, supported advisor can be freed time. So just to get some color on that would be really helpful. Just a quick one. Obviously, there's a lot of headlines on Russia this morning. Can you just remind us what your exposure is to Russia in your asset portfolio, if anything at all?
Finally, I was looking through your solvency sensitivities, your life business, and I noticed quite a big change in 2021 to the equity stress, the down stress. It's moved from, you know, a 10% reduction in equities, meaning that there's no change in solvency to an increase in 11 percentage points now. Can you just explain what's driving that? Is it because of some hedging changes or something? Thanks.
Okay. Yeah, thank you. I'll take the first one on competitive landscape. Ask Robert Gardner to talk about the Russian exposure and then come back to Craig on the sensitivities. Look, you would have heard, well you all would have heard me say over the years that the wealth and savings market is large. It's continuing to grow, while at the same time accessing advice for consumers is becoming more difficult 'cause the scarcity of advisors, the so-called advice gap. Having more access to advice is positive for savers. Certainly different people will want different offerings. As I said in the presentation earlier, at SJP, we offer the full face-to-face financial advice. I remain very confident that that is continuing to grow.
Indeed events today might help that grow as well. We don't see any news that's come out this week as impacting our 2025 ambitions. Hopefully that answers that one. Rob, do you want to just pick up the Russian exposure in our GBP 154 billion?
Yeah. Hi, Louise. Yeah, Rob here. As Andrew said, I think you've got to see this in the context of, A, GBP 150 billion, and B, over 30,000 underlying line items. In that context, I know exposure is de minimis.
Okay. Craig, sensitivities on Solvency II.
I think the answer to that is the equity dampener is probably very close to its maximum at the moment because of the shape of equity markets, particularly those equities in the dampener basket under Solvency II. Any variation there is down to that, otherwise known as the asymmetric adjustment.
Very clear. Thanks.
Thank you. Nadia, should we move on to the next one?
Thank you. Our next question comes from Enrico Bolzoni of JPMorgan. Enrico, please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi. Good morning. Thank you. Congratulations. Very strong result. A couple of questions. One is, you mentioned the 350 students you currently have in the academy. I just wanted to know how many of these 350 you expect to join St. James's Place advisor population this year. The second question was just on Asia and your DSM business. I know you said you're on track. I just wanted to know if you can give us a bit of extra color in terms of what's the path of progress you're seeing there.
Do you see it as exponential or it's actually very linear or basically I just want to understand if we might be surprised at some point that maybe things evolve a bit faster than what you planned. Thank you.
Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Can I just make sure that we've understood the second question, first of all? I think you're asking for some extra color on the path to profitability and what might-
Yeah, that's right. That's right.
Change that.
Yeah.
That's fine. Yeah. Okay, cool.
That's right.
In which case, I will hand that over shortly to Iain Rayner. In terms of the 350 recruits in the academy, we would expect, you know, the vast majority, if not all of them, to join the partnership, partly over this year and partly over next year, depending upon where they are inside their training. Ian, do you want to just pick up the Asia point?
Yeah. Thank you. I think we gave a c lear statement about our plans in Asia to 2025 at the Capital Markets Day last May, and that was around our kind of commitment to building this cash profitable business, GBP 5 billion assets under management business in Asia by 2025. Our kind of... You know, you asked about whether we see a kind of linear track on that or if there's anything gonna be more exponential. I think the answer is linear, both on the path to cash breakeven stroke profitability but also the growth in gross flow. The figures that were in that presentation last May are still where we see the business tracking to 2025.
Thank you.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you.
Nadia, should we? Next one. Thank you.
Yep. Our next question comes from Greg Simpson of BNP Paribas. Greg, please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi, good morning, and thanks for the presentation. A few questions from my side. I'll keep it to three. The first is that the results in previous years, you used to have a kind of an annual client survey and show responses on value for money and client advocacy. I think the survey might have been discontinued, but I'm just wondering if you can share any color on how client views are evolving on these metrics. Second question is on investment performance. Again, can you provide any update here? I think there's a press article suggesting a few of the funds have struggled a little bit. Our clients tend to be in the kind of portfolios you have.
I guess thirdly, more broadly, the competitor who is planning an augmented advice offering talks about using digital or robo-advice with face-to-face and then maybe targeting investors who may be in the advice gap. I'm just wondering if you think SJP can maybe over time service more clients who are perhaps maybe lower touch in terms of requirements and maybe leverage your own investments in technology and digital. Just how you're kind of thinking about that opportunity. Thank you.
Okay. I'll pick up the annual client survey, hand over to Rob on the investment performance, and then probably back to me on the technology. Iain Mackenzie might well help with what we're actually doing there. On the client surveys, what we've done is rather than have a snapshot, you know, once and done survey every year, we now do, let's call them pulse surveys with clients throughout the year. In the main body of the report and accounts, which I appreciate isn't published yet, you will see the movement in the metrics that we always show value for money, advocacy, et cetera. They all improved in 2021 after obviously more difficult times in 2020. you know, very strong still. On the investment performance, Robert.
Yeah. Hi, Craig. A couple of things. I think the main thing is as Andrew said, you know, we're kind of investing for our clients for decades, not days. The key metric we look at is what's the median return all of our clients have received net of all fees, and that's well over 7%, which means our average client has more than doubled their wealth over 10 years. Particularly in 2021, the average of our fund grew about 11%, but you've got to remember we've got 5 million different combinations of fund outcomes for our clients. Again, our managed portfolio, which is kind of our proxy for 60/40, did 9.5% net of all fees.
I think you were referring to Spot the Dog, and I think the key thing to note there is that that's not an apples to apples comparison because you take our fund charges, which carry our advice and our platform fees and our underlying fund manager fees and compare them with underlying fund performance. Again, those funds were a small percentage of our overall fund.
Okay, thank you. On the technology, we see technology supporting our face-to-face advice model. It's gonna make us easier to do business with, and it will also increase client experience. To perhaps get a flavor of that, I might just ask Ian Mackenzie to just touch on our sort of next generation client experience that will come out later this year. Ian.
Thanks, Andrew, and thanks, Greg. Yeah, as Andrew says, we see technology fundamentally complementing face-to-face advice. Indeed, our investment in Bluedoor and Salesforce, and just to put it out there, we've completed our re-platforming and it went well, and it's hard work. Our investment in Bluedoor and Salesforce has made us have that sort of platform where we can build on. We will be launching, built on Salesforce and powered by Bluedoor data, our new clients app in an app store near you, both Android and Apple, at the end of this quarter, which will provide 24/7 access to SJP and clients on clients' mobiles, and importantly empower and enable the partnership to lead and complement a digital relationship with the clients. We believe we'll have a compelling offering there.
Document sharing, real-time chat, click to call, secure video calling, and all the things there, as well as obviously seeing your portfolio, and importantly for clients, their personalized performance, not just some sort of fund performance at a generic level. I say that will be live in pilot in app stores by the end of the quarter. Thanks. I hope that helps, Greg.
Thanks, Ian.
That's great. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Riya Shah of Deutsche Bank. Riya, please go ahead. Your line is open.
Thank you. I just have two questions. The first one's around costs, and I appreciate the color you've given during the presentation and to earlier questions as well. Are you able to provide some more color just within the different parts of controllable expenses? How should we be seeing establishment expenses grow this year? Because they were flat in 2021.
My second question is around activity and the first quarter. I appreciate that last year's quarter was a tough comparative, but in terms of looking towards the ISA flows and tax year-end, could we see any more surge in demand if there was any remaining pent-up demand to use allowances? Do you think most of it was used up last year?
I'll pick up the activity bit, and Craig can do the costs. Do you want to do the cost first, Craig?
Yeah. I'll pick costs up first. I think the general pattern here in the future will be that establishment expenses are contained to more or less where you see them for 2021. There will be some movement, and it's important to understand that there is a relationship between development costs and establishment expenses. For example, you know, if we roll out new software, what is a development in one year can become an ongoing establishment cost the next in terms of license fees and what have you. I think what I would encourage is to think about this in an overall sense.
Rather than think about the three main component parts, which we will continue to call out at least in the short term, I would think of it in terms of total controllable overheads. The general pattern of what it is we're doing over the planning period up to 2025 is to try and reduce as far as possible what you might regard as additional costs, so we can create more space for investments through the development line. I would think of them in totality rather than individually.
Okay. Thank you, Craig. Just on the activity, look, we're sort of six or seven weeks into the new year, and January is always the quietest month of the year. The activity levels that we're seeing in this period mean that, you know, we are confident of achieving that 7% market consensus for the year. As Craig said earlier, you know, the Q1 is the tougher comparative, so you know, it won't be even throughout the year. Just to reiterate, we're confident of achieving the 7% consensus.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Andrew Crean of Autonomous. Andrew, please go ahead. Your line is open.
Thank you. Morning, all.
Hi, Andrew.
Can I do three questions? Firstly, could you give us a sense of the market impact on your funds under management so far this year? What's happened to the GBP 154 billion from markets? Secondly, picking up on Robert Gardner's stuff, you were talking about 11% average return in 2021. I think the managed fund was 9.5%. Do you have benchmarks against those which you measure so we can see how you're doing against your benchmark? Thirdly, on Asia, with the increasing lockdowns in Hong Kong, I think the expat community there is getting a bit pissed off and some are definitely leaving. Does that have an impact upon your plans in Asia? And if not, why not?
Okay, thank you. I'll ask Craig to probably talk about the market impact on funds, because he's probably more familiar with everyone's models. Robert to do the average return, and I'll come back to Ian on Asia. Craig, do you wanna do the impact on-
Yeah. Well, obviously, we're not publishing any update on funds under management, and the missing component from all of this is anything that's happened in terms of flows since the beginning of the year. The easiest way for me to approach the question is to think of it in terms of the models that we see. We now see a pretty high degree of accuracy when it comes to charting movements, market movements in our funds under management, which means that when we look into these models, we see a very close estimate of net income from funds under management.
I can only suggest that you look at the various indices that drive those models, and out will pop a good approximation of funds under management at any point in time, absent, of course, the impact of flows.
Thank you, Craig. Rob, do you want to come back to the benchmarking?
Hey, Andrew. You're right. The 11% and 9.5% represent a mixture of funds. The average client will hold 10 to 12 funds. That's what makes up a portfolio. The underlying funds, we have 39 different funds, all have their own benchmarks. On average, across our range in 2021, on a relative basis, they outperformed. Obviously there were some winners, there were some losers. The net relative position net of our manager fees, not RF fees, was positive. The best way to see that is our value assessment, which you can see for last year, where we only had 8% green and 2% red.
We'll be updating that in the coming months.
Eight green and two red?
Sorry, 8% green and 2% red.
Okay.
Thanks, Andrew. I'll just ask Ian to answer the Asia question.
Thanks, Andrew. I think the way to think about our Asia business is it's split roughly 50/50 between Hong Kong and Singapore.
We see Singapore as a really strong net beneficiary. Ironically, as to what's going on in Hong Kong, i.e., we're seeing clients and funds flowing into Singapore quite strongly at the moment. I've been out there a couple of times over the last couple of months. In terms of immediate impacts, we're confident about our gross flows across Asia. In terms of Hong Kong specifically, yes, there's no doubt that the lockdowns are having an impact. You know, Hong Kong, we think will have a decent business result in 2022. Actually, if you think about the nature of our advice proposition in that part of the world, it's about expats and providing a kind of wealth management proposition that enables people to move around globally.
It actually works quite well in this environment.
Thank you, Iain.
Thanks.
Thanks, Andrew.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Nasib Ahmed of UBS. Nasib, please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi. Morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Just a couple from me. Firstly, related to earlier questions on competition and consolidation in the U.K. market. I think you previously highlighted DFM as an area where you can potentially grow inorganically. Is that still the case? Are there any other areas that you would look at to grow inorganically? That's question one. Question two, on just the solvency, U.K. solvency review. There's a potential risk margin reduction, and given you don't have a transitional, it seems you would benefit from a change like that. Is that true? Related to this, I noticed that you removed a statement in your press release where you talk about the group solvency ratio diluting if the SGPU case balance sheet increases or develops.
I was wondering if that was related to the review though and what's changed there. Thank you.
I think I'll do the acquisition point. We have... You know, it's an area we'll always be open to, but there are no plans in the immediate future to take part in the consolidation in the DFM space. T hat I wouldn't say it would be a never. I'm gonna hand over to Craig to talk about the solvency.
Yeah. Hi. There are, if I've understood the question correctly, plans afoot or at least consultations that would have a positive impact for some, if not all. What I would emphasize though, and I sort of go back to where we were probably this time last year when we were describing the impact that IFRS has in our life company. The way to think of it is whilst there could be benefits emerging in the form of kinder Solvency II calculations, the thing that will be the constraining factor within our life company will be IFRS and the requirement to defer income. There's nothing new there, and it's really planning through that resulted in the change in the dividend payout ratio that we announced last year.
The second part, I think, there may have been a small piece of disclosure, but I think all it was doing, excuse me, was drawing a distinction between solvency and the life company and overall group solvency. Of course, overall, the general picture is that the life company grows at quite a pace, and yet the group balance sheet itself, if you think of it in terms of the shareholder balance sheet, doesn't. Really all it was seeking to do was describe the relationship between those two factors.
Okay. Thank you, Craig.
Nadia, do we have anyone else with questions?
Just as a reminder, ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypads. Our final question at the moment comes from Stephen Haywood of HSBC. Stephen, please go ahead. Your line is open.
Thank you. Good morning.
Hi, Stephen.
Hi. Hi, Andrew. In terms of current market volatility, does this present to your sales agents outflows, would you say? That would be my first question. Second question on the DFM business. You've highlighted there'll be a GBP 11 million net investment cost in 2022, which is obviously going the wrong direction towards your breakeven target. Just wondering, to get to your breakeven target in 2024, is there a really steep or kind of recovery in the next couple of years, or does it all just happen in 2024? Finally from me, sorry, on the regulatory fees and FSCS levy, I saw it went down year-on-year, which is a nice surprise that might have been related to a one-off last year.
What should we expect for this regulatory fees and FSCS levy to sort of grow at going forwards? Will it remain stable, or would it be surprising to come down again in the future? Thank you.
Okay. What I'll do is I'll ask Craig to talk about the trajectory of the DFM profits to profitability, and also the FSCS levy. I'll probably come back and talk about the current market volatility. Craig, do you want to do the DFM then?
It's not quite the hockey stick you might imagine because the key factor within our net investment in DFM is a two and a little bit year project to completely replatform our DFM business. The reason you see this coming through as a cost is that it doesn't qualify for capitalization. If we take a kind of management accounting view of it, there's a real long-term benefit of getting this done. Unfortunately, when it comes to a set of accounts, it washes through in the year that you spend the money. The reason for that rapid move towards break-even and profitability isn't so much that anything is changing on the income side, it's that we cut the cost off once we finish that project.
I think the second bit to the question is FSCS. I wish I could give you a number, but I'm afraid I can't. It's very difficult to see how that will evolve. I'm hopeful that it won't escalate. I made the point in the presentation that we don't see this as a sustainable charge. I think the fact that the FCA consulting on this is really positive. I think the fact that most, if not all stakeholders want to do something about it is also very positive. I think to be fair, it's difficult to see how quickly progress can be made on this. My sort of planning assumption for the time being, for 2022, is that it's about the same, but I'm afraid that's about as accurate as I'm able to be.
Okay. Thank you, Craig. I'll just come back to your first question, Stephen. Look, I mean, clearly the situation in Ukraine is disturbing, and we'll be watching it closely. Our advisors will naturally be staying close to their clients as the situation develops as well. You know, we are of course a long-term business, long-term investing. You know, we've been through lots of different issues over the 30 years, and I can remember most of them well. We started in the ERM crisis, long-term capital management, you know, 9/11, Iraq War, financial crisis, you know, the recent pandemic, et cetera, et cetera. Different clients will behave differently. To sort of try and bring it to life, I'll just make up two clients, yeah?
Firstly, a younger client may see market volatility and market falls as a good buying opportunity because they might have a 30, 40, 50-year time horizon. Older clients might be a little bit more reticent to invest 'cause their time horizon might be shorter. Of course, they might actually be investing for inheritance tax purposes, in which case they go beyond their life expectancy, you know, into their beneficiaries. I think every client will behave slightly differently. We are a long, long-term business. Okay. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you, Stephen. We currently have no further questions, so I'll hand the call back over to you, Andrew, for any closing remarks.
Okay. Well, thank you very much everyone for joining. It's good to have a conversation here as well. Look, I think as I said in the CEO comment on the results, you know, we look forward and see that the demand face-to-face advice remains as strong as ever. We think we are ideally placed to continue to benefit from that increasing demand. You know, we are making the right investments in the business. After 12 months, we are in a very good place against those stretching targets we set ourselves for 2025. That's it from me. Thank you again for attending.