LIBERTYVIEW IS PUBLISHED BY LIBERTY WEALTH MANAGEMENT ©LWM 2014

LIBERTYVIEWI N V E S T M E N T N E W S F O R C L I E N T S O F L I B E R T Y W E A L T H M A N A G E M E N T • I S S U E 0 2 • S U M M E R 2 0 1 4

IN THIS ISSUE:

Women in BusinessMore women are entering the workplace, but is there equality between men and women?

Broaden your HorizonsThe Prince of Wales adds weight to the debate over long-term versus short-term investments

Client Wine Tasting EventExclusive access to our Wine tasting and tour event at New Hall Vineyard, Chelmsford

The Return of Corporate ActivityBids and deals are back again: The re-emergence of M&As and IPOs

WELCOME

Integrity. Excellence. Trust.

Lee Devonald PrincipalLiberty Wealth Management

F E A T U R E S

4 Women in the spotlight

How the workplace is benefitting from an

even playing field

6 The return of corporate activity

A flurry of flotations, mergers and

acquisitions heralds a promising year

9 St. Luke’s Hospice

Liberty supports the Hospice’s excellent

end of life care

10 Birds of a feather

Global investors flock back into

European equities

13 Broaden your horizons

The benefits of a long-term approach

to investing

16 Liberty event – wine tasting

A visit to New Hall Vineyard and a taste of

financial advice

18 Company profile

Practice Manager Lauren Sorenson talks to

us about her new addition

Welcome to the second edition of Liberty View, our client focused newsletter.

It has been a very busy period since our last edition, both in personal and business terms.

Markets continued to hold strong through 2013, with this year starting fairly flat. Short

term fluctuations are normal, and indeed essential, for the good of longer term investment

opportunities. At Liberty Wealth Management we concentrate on our clients’ aims and

objectives, and help them deliver successful solutions to their own particular concerns.

Neil Woodford, one the most respected fund managers over the past 25 years, elected

in October 2013 to leave Invesco Perpetual to form his own company, Woodford

Investment Management. Neil has managed St. James’s Place Funds since 2001 and has

been very successful over that period. During a six month period considerable work was

undertaken including meetings with the CEO and CIO of Invesco Perpetual both in the

UK and New York.

The remainder of the investment community that were invested with Neil Woodford have

to decide themselves if they wish to follow Neil to his new company. If so this could incur

significant exit penalties, tax charges and re-investment costs. And what if it does not work

out? With the St. James’s Place Approach to Investment Management you do not have to

concern yourself with making these decisions or constantly incurring costs.

And finally I became a Grandad to Baby Jake on 29th January – the best news of all.

Enjoy the read and please contact us if you have any questions.

Welcome to Liberty View

ANALYSIS

How are women faring in the business community in terms of making money and managing it? The signals are conflicting. While the news on pay rates is disappointing, there are some positive signs.

Equalising the labour force between men and women by increasing the number of women in work could see our national output rise by up to 10% by 2030, according to the Women’s Business Council (WBC). It says there are

Women in the spotlight

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4

The UK may be behind its targets for more female directors on company boards and pay equality, but the future does offer signs of optimism

5

After decades of failing to meet equality targets, statistics show that women in the UK are still behind men in terms of pay and representation on company boards. But as more women enter the workplace, it seems changes are taking place behind the scenes.

2.4 million women who are not in work but would

like to be, and a further 1.3 million who would like to

increase the number of hours they work. The WBC says

it is promoting female participation in the workplace,

not just to do the right thing by women, but to make the

British economy as productive and efficient as possible.

Two other areas have been in the spotlight for some

time: pay inequality and the number of female directors

on company boards. After four decades of equality

groups trying unsuccessfully to encourage pay parity for

the sexes, women still earn 18 per cent less than men,

according to government statistics.

Lord Davies’ 2011 report, Women on Boards sets a target

for women to hold 25% of directorships of FTSE 100

companies by 2015. With just under a year to go, that

goal looks unlikely to be achieved. In contrast, Helena

Morrissey, founder of the 30 Percent Club, has moved

away from concentration on such targets.

She is also the chair of Opportunity Now, whose current

‘Project 28-40’ is examining what happens to women’s

pay between those ages. At the lower end of that age

range there is little difference between male and female

earning levels, but the disparity starts in the 30s. Their

previous research shows that by 45 women earn an

average of 28 per cent less than men.

But whatever happens on pay and in boardrooms, it

seems that some changes are taking place behind the

scenes. If we look at the micro level of how households

manage their money, the global financial crisis put many

families under financial pressure and women began to

play a more important role.

‘Families became more reliant on what would have been

the second income, the one usually brought in by the

female,’ says Catherine Johnson, an Academy Partner

at St. James’s Place. ‘And circumstances have dictated

that some women have returned to work after having

children when they might not have done otherwise.’

In fact, many of those women have set up their own

businesses. This is clearly an area where women are

breaking through, as the vast majority of people entering

self-employment in recent years have been female.

Jenny Moloney, another St. James’s Place Academy

Partner, says: ‘More and more, a household needs to

have two people working.’ She adds that many women

are now equal partners when it comes to the financial

decision-making, if indeed they are not already at the

helm. This is not because women are taking over, but

because ‘women handle a lot of logistics in running the

house, and decisions on money come under that’.

Acceptance of women varies from sector to sector –

and the financial advice sector may be one where more

women will find roles for themselves. For example,

of the individuals training to give wealth management

advice in the St. James’s Place Academy, 19 per cent

are women, reflecting the kind of changes taking place

in households. St. James’s Place is keen to attract more

women as it believes that clients want the choice of

having female advisers, and it recently ran a special

session for women who might be interested.

Baroness Patience Wheatcroft, non-executive director on

the St. James’s Place Board, chaired the session and said

she was particularly heartened by the growing number of

female owner-managers. ‘There are many more women

who are wealthy in their own right,’ she says.

It could be that equality will one day be reached,

less by male structures slowly adapting to women

by incremental targets, than by women creating

their own businesses and their own wealth; perhaps

with business cultures that also employ and highly

remunerate women.

ANALYSIS

Vodafone, the Royal Mail and Twitter are just some of the big names which were involved in major financial deals and flotations in the second half of 2013, and the trend is set to continue this year

Bids and deals are back. At least, that is what many experts are hoping after the flurry of flotations, mergers and acquisitions that were announced in the second half of last year. Vodafone’s sale to Verizon was the UK’s second largest ever deal. The government’s sale of just over half its stake in the Royal Mail was the biggest privatisation since the 1980s heyday of sell-offs such as British Gas and British Telecom. Across the Atlantic, Twitter became the latest technology giant to go public in one of the US’s biggest initial public offerings (IPOs).

The return of corporate activity

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6 7

‘Companies and investors are confident about the future so they are more willing to invest in IPOs.’ Raffaele Jerusalmi

The level of investors’ enthusiasm was just as striking as the size of these deals. Retail investors in the Royal Mail privatisation were substantially oversubscribed whilst demand for Twitter was also well above the number of shares being offered.

Less celebrated companies have also enjoyed successful debuts, with upmarket estate agents Foxtons and housebuilder Crest Nicholson among those with well-received IPOs in 2013. Fund manager Aberdeen Asset Management’s announcement of its purchase of Scottish Widows Investment Partnership sent its share price soaring.

This is in sharp contrast to the dark days of the financial crisis, when corporate activity all but dried up. Raffaele Jerusalmi, director of capital markets at London Stock Exchange Group, said: ‘In the past five or six years, we have been in a situation where, a few months after an IPO, the shares were trading below the price at which they were issued. That was not positive for investors. Now, however, companies and investors are feeling

more confident about the future of the economy so they are more willing to invest in IPOs.’

The recovery in the stock market is certainly helping; last year was one of the best for shares since the start of the financial crisis and the five-year performance record for shares and investment funds is now looking very healthy. There is also growing confidence in the global economy; the US recovery appears well established albeit that growth is still relatively low, the UK is also showing marked signs of improvement, and, while the picture in Europe is rather more mixed, the crisis of confidence in the Euro appears to have receded, at least for the time being.

Even the tapering of the US’s programme of quantitative easing (QE) which started in December, is less feared by investors than it was. Indeed, some observers think that the gradual withdrawal of the QE life support mechanism could actually encourage corporate activity. The very low interest rates that have accompanied QE have allowed some of the weaker companies to continue in business. As the global economy reverts to more normal conditions, these weaker businesses could find it harder to survive and become takeover targets for their stronger rivals.

After a period of relative

corporate inactivity during

the financial crisis, the

second half of 2013

saw a flurry of major

merger, acquisitions and

Initial Public Offerings

(IPOs) – with companies

and investors displaying

renewed confidence in

investing. And 2014

could see further deals on

the table.

The value of an investment with St. James’s Place will be directly linked to the performance of the funds you select and the value can therefore go down as well as up. You may get back less than you invested. Equities do not have the security of capital which is characteristic of a deposit with a bank or building society.

ANALYSIS

LIBERTYVIEW

9

The return to corporate activity is also an indicator of the health and confidence of the corporate sector. Companies have spent the five years since the banking crisis erupted paying down debt, cutting costs and repairing their balance sheets. The result is that many of them are now in a good position to take advantage of the tentative signs of recovery by expanding their businesses. One of the ways to do that is to acquire rivals.

An analysis by Deloitte, which compiles a quarterly mergers and acquisitions (M&A) index, shows that the constituents of the S&P 500 and the FTSE 100 indices had average cash balances of $3.6 billion in the middle of 2013 and are generating an average of $476 million each year.

‘With the economic environment in the US and Europe improving, Deloitte expects corporate confidence to increase, and for companies to pursue growth through M&A,’ the analysis reports. ‘A steady recovery, both in optimism and the economy, across developed markets, is expected to drive the uptick in M&A deal volumes.’

Ernst & Young, which does a similar analysis of the IPO market, thinks that the rise in corporate confidence will also fuel an increase in new issue activity. It found that

fewer IPOs were being postponed in 2013 than in 2012 and that the majority of deals were priced at, or above, expectations – an improvement from the worst days of the financial crisis when prices were low and some proposed IPOs were abandoned because of market nervousness.

While a healthy IPO and M&A market depends on abuoyant stock market, such deals can also be positivefor the stock market as speculators bid up the price ofcompanies that they think could attract deals, and thepublicity surrounding new issues draws attention tothe attractions of equities. These attractions, which are particularly pronounced thanks to the current low-interest rate regime with deposit rates generally well below the level of inflation, are likely to remain for some time.

Of course, not all mergers and acquisitions are good news for investors in the long term – the purchase of ABN AMRO by Royal Bank of Scotland just as the financial crisis erupted surely ranks as one of the worst deals ever. But the current market is a long way from the frothy conditions of that time – so frothy, indeed, that RBS was actually vying with Barclays to acquire ABN. Today’s deals are based on solid industrial logic rather than grandiose ambitions.

SPECIAL REPORT

Liberty Wealth Management supports St. Luke’s Hospice in its work to give people the very best end of life care

‘I had been keen for some time to offer support to a suitable cause, but with so many fantastic charities and organisations to choose from plus of course the fantastic work done by the St. James’s Place Foundation it was very difficult. You feel like you should give a little to every deserving cause. I decided to concentrate on local charities that our own Liberty community may have experience of or may indeed require in the future. I had been aware of St. Luke’s Hospice for many years and indeed drive past it regularly. A hospice is unlike any other charity in that it does not raise money for research into curing dreadful diseases or illnesses. It cannot make you better but it offers so much more to the families who are feeling pain and sadness.

Dignity, comfort, home from home, and strangely in many cases happiness through all the pain and suffering. During my personal visit to the hospice I realised how important these things are and to see the dedication of the voluntary staff is quite overwhelming. A very humbling experience and my decision was made on the spot.

I look forward to supporting St. Lukes’s Hospice in the months and years ahead and trust you will all join me’.

Lee Devonald Principal

St. Luke’s Hospice cares for the people of Basildon and Thurrock by providing end of life care. Next year will be our 25th anniversary. During this time we have helped thousands of people thanks to the support of the local community and local businesses. Our services are many and include an In Patient Unit, Day Hospice, Hospice at Home, bereavement counseling, social work, physiotherapy and complementary therapy. It costs £9,000 each day to provide these services whilst the cost of caring for someone in our In Patient Unit costs £4,000. All of our services are free.

The support we have from the business community is very important and we are delighted that Liberty Wealth Management have chosen to support us through a Wine Tasting and Tour in April and the forthcoming Charity Golf Day at Chelmsford Golf Club on 23rd May. I am sure both events will be a great success.

2014 is an exciting year for St. Luke’s as it will see the opening of our new Day Hospice Annex in the summer. The annex is being built thanks to an award from the Department of Health and the support of trusts and foundations. The annex is required because our population is growing and more people are accessing our services. Thanks to more people surviving cancer, services for cancer survivors are likely to be increasingly required. Whilst the cost of building work has been largely met we do still have to source the funds to pay for our wonderful nurses and medical staff to provide the care.

We are immensely proud of the care given to our patients. St. Luke’s is a very happy environment and there is always something fun taking place. We very much like to show people around and if you would like to visit do please contact me.

If you would like to get involved in supporting St. Luke’s Hospice we would love to hear from you.

Tony Bloomfield Head of Fundraisingtonybloomfield@stlukeshospice.co.uk

Support for St. Luke’s Hospice

Stephen Metcalfe MP

and Gerry Peaty, Chair

of St. Luke’s at ground-

breaking ceremony for

new Day Hospice Annex,

October 2013

Retail investors in the

Royal Mail privatisation

oversubscribed seven

times as many shares

as were allotted to them,

whilst demand for

Twitter was also well

above the number of

shares being offered.

8

ANALYSIS

LIBERTYVIEW

10 11

And yet, judging by the recent performance of continental stock markets, the eurozone is not doing so badly after all. During the 12 months to November, the FTSEurofirst 80 Index of the largest companies and the broader FTSEurofirst 300 Eurozone Index generated healthy returns, outperforming the main indices, such as the FTSE 100 and Dow Jones, in both the UK and North America. And now that it seems to have overcome its existential crisis, the Euro has proved remarkably strong, thereby providing comfort to external investors.

As a result, global investors have been piling back into European equities. According to a recent survey by Bank of America Merrill Lynch and data provider EPFR Global, inflows to European equity funds represented nearly four per cent of all assets under management (AUM) between September and November 2013, outperforming US stock markets by the biggest margin in Europe’s favour since the financial crisis.

Stuart Mitchell, founder of S.W. Mitchell Capital, which manages the St. James’s Place Continental European fund and co-manages the Greater European Progressive fund, has noted the growing interest of US fund managers in Europe. Indeed, the value of their holdings in Europe’s ten largest publicly listed banks increased by nearly 40 per cent to 33 billion Euros between June and September 2013.

‘The challenges facing Europe are significanty less than those faced by either the United States or Britain,’ says Mitchell. ‘Across the eurozone as a whole, the ratio of combined government and private-sector debt to Gross Domestic Product is much lower than those of the Anglo-Saxon economies. Germany remains an economic powerhouse, generating current account surpluses larger than China. German and Dutch companies, in particular, are growing market share. Compared with other developed economic regions, Europe is, on many counts, more competitive.’

And it is not just the ‘core’ economies of northern Europe that have been improving. ‘The transition among periphery economies has gone remarkably well, thanks to the ECB acting as an effective backstop,’ says

Mitchell. Ireland’s recovery has been so strong that it has exited its bailout programme, while Portugal and even Greece are running current account surpluses.

‘Spain remains key to this broader recovery, and we have been impressed by how its austerity programme has been managed,’ says Mitchell. ‘Competitiveness has improved, and even the property market is showing signs of recovery.’

Wolfgang Münchau, director of Eurointelligence, adds: ‘Germany will continue to outperform the rest of the eurozone.’ Its success in global markets is due not only to its engineering prowess, but because it remains cost-competitive. This is partly due to German labour costs staying flat, while output per worker has risen (a trend shared by the Netherlands and France).

Such is Germany’s advantage in productivity that even the introduction of a minimum wage of 8.50 Euro an hour will not have that much impact on competitiveness says Münchau. ‘Large companies will rein in employment, restructure their labour force and further increase productivity levels,’ he adds. ‘They won’t give up on Germany by off-shoring production elsewhere, mainly because the ‘Made in Germany’ tag is essential to their image in export markets. So they’ll take the hit on costs.’

European companies have long had to stay competitive, despite relatively high wages and energy costs – the latter especially since the US shale gas ‘revolution’. But big corporates have a track record in levelling things out, even in capital and energy-intensive industries such as petrochemicals. Mitchell points out that companies such as BASF, the world’s leading chemical company, have integrated different processes into a single site ‘with a sophistication and skill that is years ahead of even the latest chemical plants elsewhere. That enables them to be competitive while retaining better margins.’

Similarly, Volkswagen leads the way in sharing components between the 12 brands it produces in more than 100 plants around the world. Recent lower sales in Europe and emerging markets, along with ‘capacity

Despite uneven growth in the eurozone and continued negative headlines, the performance of continental stock markets has seen global investors flocking back into european equities

The news out of Europe continues to make grim reading. Economic growth across the eurozone is weak and unevenly distributed. France, the region’s second-largest economy, slipped into negative growth during the autumn, while its high-spending socialist government caused its sovereign rating to be taken down a notch by credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s.

Unemployment in parts of southern Europe remains unacceptably high, way below the European Central Banks’s (ECB) target rate of 2 per cent, prompting fears of a deflationary spiral and calls for the bank to do more in the way of monetary stimulus.

Birds of a feather

optimisation’, mean it is postponing construction of some new factories, though spending on technology and products will be unaffected.

Of course there are risks. While the southern economies are stabilising, their growth is likely to remain pedestrian for years to come and the high levels of unemployment will act as a brake on consumer growth. While the immediate threat of a break-up of the Euro has receded, there is no guarantee that it will survive. Having risen sharply, European stock markets could well mark time for 2014. But the long-term picture is improving.

‘Europe is always the last to turn the corner towards recovery,’ observes Mitchell, ‘and it will follow the Anglo-Saxon economies’ recovery next year. Compared to the UK or the US it is a low-inflation economy and, in my view, the Euro is still undervalued. It has a solid industrial base and is therefore better balanced than service-led economics like the UK.

‘From the investor’s perspective, Europe is all about the risk premium. Shares should be trading at a small discount to US stocks, but currently they are still at a 35-40 per cent discount.’ That gap should tighten soon. ‘Risk premium moves,’ he notes, ‘can be very sudden.’

ANALYSIS

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12 13

IN YOUR INTEREST

With the Prince of Wales entering the debate over short-term investing, we examine the benefits of a long- term approach

There is general agreement among the investment industry that a long-term approach to investing offers the best rewards. Yet the pressure on fund managers to outperform on a yearly, six-monthly, or quarterly basis is growing; pressure that makes it very hard for them to avoid short-term decisions.

The Prince of Wales recently entered the debate with a warning to the National Association of Pension Funds (NAPF) conference that the current focus on short-term investing was ‘unfit for purpose’.

He also cited ‘mounting evidence’ from Harvard and London Business Schools showing that businesses willing to improve their approach to environmental and social challenges were more likely to deliver long-term returns.

Broaden your Horizons

BASF have integrated

different processes

into a single site whilst

Volkswagen leads the

way in sharing

components between the

12 brands it produces

in more than 100 plants

which enables them to

be competitive while

retaining better margins.

ANALYSIS

15

His sentiments chimed with those of professor John Kay, whose Review of UK Equity Markets and Long-Term

Decision-Making was commissioned by the government and published in July 2012.

Kay found that over-reliance on the short term, both in terms of company earnings and share performance, has been largely destructive. Companies that are concerned about their share price tend to underinvest in the underlying business. Long-term strategic planning is sacrificed to the goal of maintaining the share price.

The historic function of equity markets – to enable companies to raise finance in order to invest for the long term – is not working as well as it did. Kay argues

that the fragmentation of the equity market, with over 40 per cent of shares now owned by overseas investors and the increase in rapid trading, especially the algorithmic ‘high-frequency trading’ determined by computer programmes, have all contributed to the breakdown in the traditional partnership between investors and the companies, from which both used to benefit.

In New York, Will Browne, managing director of Tweedy, Browne, agrees that investment horizons have got shortened in the past five to ten years. ‘Turnover in mutual funds is at all-time highs,’ he says. ‘Because of computers and the internet, we have information at our fingertips immediately that would have taken months to

come by in the past,’ Browne adds. ‘So the problem is information overload. This leads to higher turnover and more decision-making, so markets fluctute more.’

‘Volatility can be corrosive,’ Browne argues, ‘having an impact on trust in the investment community.’

Kay thinks it is vital to restore this trust, arguing that we have moved away from a culture in financial services that was based on relationships to one based on transactions and trading. In his report, he emphasises that the interests of companies and investors should be aligned. ‘The goals of equity markets are to operate and sustain high-performing companies and to earn good returns for savers without undue risk. The two perspectives are essentially identical. In the long run, the profits earned by high-performing companies are the only source of returns for savers who invest in equities.’

Long-term investments usually offer the best rewards, but it is often difficult to avoid short-term decisions, which lead to market volatility. And with the Prince of Wales criticing the short-term approach, investors are encouraged to view setbacks with a cool head.

By their very nature, markets can go through periods of over-and under-valuation. Browne provides a fund manager’s point of view. ‘When [shares are overvalued], you give to the guy who is more optimistic,’ he says. ‘You peel it off slowly as the value begins to distance itself from the stock. If the stock price comes back and the value reappears, we will put some investment back in.’

For investors like Tweedy, Browne, short-term, rapid movements in share prices are just part of the overall cycle. They can be annoying, but it’s just noise. And while many investors are looking at short-term movements in the share price, Tweedy, Browne spends time focusing on the underlying business, which enables them to remain detached enough to concentrate on what matters: the underlying value of the stock. Besides, they argue, a low share price gives them a

competitive advantage; a chance to buy into a business they believe in, at a discount to the rest of the market.

A drop in share price is also a chance to add to an investment – Tweedy, Browne has added to its holdings in Nestlé, the food and beverage conglomerate, several times in this way over the past 20 years.

Chances of winning

In the short-term/long-term debate, one small but important point is often overlooked: dealing costs. Everyone pays dealing costs, whether they are a private or institutional investor. Repeatedly trading a portfolio ratchets up the costs.

It’s even worse if those decisions turn out to be wrong. Warren Buffett the long-term value investor, likes to use the analogy of an American football team. If it wants to increase its chances of winning, it must avoid making mistakes such as fumbling the ball at a bad time. Buffett says that buying shares in a good business and hanging on for the long term is a better strategy than flipping stocks.

In terms of portfolio turnover, it’s certainly true that the stock market does look as if it has become shorter term. For UK equities, the overall average holding period has declined since the mid-1960s from around eight years to just seven and a half months1. However, this measurement is misleading, because it is heavily skewed by a high number of smaller trades around the margins of the statistical base and does not reflect accurately the fact that the majority of institutional shareholders tend to hold stocks for periods of well over a year, sometimes several.

If investors can sit back and view short-term blips and setbacks as an opportunity to buy, rather than to panic, and screen out the market noise, the expectation is that, barring a major unpredictable event, equities will continue to outperform bonds and commodities.

The views and opinions given above are not neccesarily those held by St. James’s Place Management.1: Professional adviser, 21 November 2013

Will Browne suggests that

investment horizons have

got shortened because

‘we have information

at our fingertips

immediately’ and that

‘the problem is

information overload.’

14

SPECIAL REPORT

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16 17

Liberty guests were told how the grape vines are selected and carefully grown on the sheltered, south facing slopes of a shallow valley. The location has over the years proven itself to be ideal, producing above average crops of high quality grapes each year.

After the tour, Liberty guests were treated to a wine tasting. New Hall wines have won countless awards including a number in the annual UKVA English & Welsh Wine of the Year competition. The vineyard’s extensive range includes a Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and a Classic Sparkling Brut.

The tasting was followed by lunch, both excellent opportunities for investors to speak personally to Liberty Principal Lee Devonald. Hot topics included the current state of the markets, estate planning and inheritance tax.

Liberty’s next event will be a Charity Golf Day at Chelmsford Golf Club. The event will be held on Friday 23 May 2014, teeing off will take place between 11.15am and 12.30pm, with dinner at 5.30pm. The dinner speaker will be from St. Luke’s Hospice, the charity chosen by Liberty to receive money raised on the day.

Liberty investors enjoy fine wines and excellent advice at Liberty event

A chance to enjoy in-depths financial discussion over a glass of fine wine was snapped up by dozens of Liberty investors at our wine tasting event.

The day was staged in April at New Hall Vineyard at Purleigh near Chelmsford in Essex.

With over 65 hectares of vines, there was plenty to see on the tour of the beautiful property. New Hall is one of the oldest and largest English wine producers in the country, having been established by the Greenwood family in 1969.

The Taste of New Hall Vineyard

Liberty guests sample

some of the wines

produced by New Hall

Vineyard

Farm Manager Daryl

Kemp describes the

winemaking process to

one of Liberty’s guests

IN THE SPOTLIGHT

Lauren Sorenson speaks to Liberty View

LIBERTYVIEW

18

Expanding the family business

What is your role at Liberty and what is your typical day?I’m the Practice Manager, and every day is different! Aside from the day-to-day running of the office, I also plan the client events, arrange marketing strategies, manage the client database and help out with business processing.

What is it like having your Dad (Lee Devonald) as a boss?It isn’t as bad you might think, although whether he will say otherwise I’m not sure! We work well together as we are quite similar. I’m a very organised person which is handy when Dad has ideas for the business that need putting in place as he is able to hand them over to me and I can get on with it.

You’re taking time off after giving birth to baby Jake. What do you miss most?Everyone! I miss working with the team; we all get on well and sometimes it doesn’t even feel like you are going to work. I also miss interacting with the clients whether they pop in to the office or chat with me over the phone. You really get to know people and they soon feel more like friends of Liberty. How has your life changed since having baby Jake?People used to tell me when I was pregnant that you will never remember what your life was like before you have children and I didn’t really believe them. Now I know it makes sense! Jake is now three months old and it feels like he’s been here forever. It’s quite a daunting thing having this little person rely on you for

everything when all you’ve had to worry about in the past is yourself but I wouldn’t swap it for anything, especially as Jake has the cheekiest smile which makes it all worth it. What do you enjoy doing outside work?I really enjoy playing netball and play for two teams in the Thurrock and Basildon leagues. I’m just getting back into it now since having Jake. I also run and like to do 5k/10k runs for charity when I can; my aim for summer is to join a Race for Life 5k run in aid of Cancer Research. When at home, I like to sew, whether that’s doing cross stitch in front of the TV or making things for myself, friends or family on the sewing machine.

Profile2001-2003

Palmers College

2003-2004

David Parry Solicitors,

Receptionist/Legal

Secretary

2004-2007

Macfarlanes,

Legal Secretary

2007-2009

Dresdner Kleinwort,

Personal Assistant to

legal team

2009-present

Liberty Wealth

Management,

Practice Manager

The Partner Practice represents only St. James’s Place Wealth Management plc (which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct

Authority) for the purpose of advising solely on the Group’s wealth management products and services, more details of which are set out on the

Group’s website www.sjp.co.uk/products. The ‘St. James’s Place Partnership’ and the titles ‘Partner’ and ‘Partner Practice are marketing terms used

to describe St. James’s Place representatives.

68 Woodbrooke Way, Corringham, Essex SS17 9DW

Telephone 01375 656 020 Facsimile 01375 678 000

www.libertywm.co.uk

LIBERTYVIEW IS PUBLISHED BY LIBERTY WEALTH MANAGEMENT ©LWM 2014