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New from us, general communications and announcements as well as notifications about client magazine.

WE ARE GROWING

TODAY’S BLOG

WE ARE GROWING

Despite the problems with the pandemic, we are continuing with our strategy to grow. It is my ambition to ensure that Solomons can continue to provide insight and advice well past my intended retirement date (which is still many years off). However, I need to grow the business to do so. I look at this as a way of securing our future and yours.

As of this month we have a new trainee – Daniel Liddicott. Dan will be introducing himself to you in due course and we are all being cajoled into providing a helpful bio each for the website. It is my hope that Dan will not simply enjoy a career in financial services but come to love it. To my mind this is all about helping people find some peace of mind and security that is enough to ensure that they have the lifestyle that they want, whilst protecting all that they hold dear from ruin.

Dan is hopefully the first trainee adviser of many more to join us, but once qualified (which will take around 2 years) he will need some clients to work with.

IAN HORNE CITYWIRE

Understanding the value of advice

As a client you are hopefully familiar with what we do, how and why but today I was challenged to share a video by one of our industry media outlets – Citywire. This is a short (well 22 minutes – gulp!) video of Ian Horne traversing the UK, attempting to understand the value of financial advice – talking about money is perhaps one of our last taboos. The challenge from the editor of Cirywire was to share the video – so challenge accepted. Here’s the video

So what can you do?

The truthful answer is that I would really like more clients like you, so if you have any bright ideas about how we might achieve that, I’d love to talk with you. If you have any questions about the video or anything we do or any financial topic, just get in touch – email me (that’s the easiest approach). If you have a friend of colleague that wants or needs some financial advice, well why not start with this video. It’s a bit long, but it’s a start, alternatively just share your own experience.

Some Context

In the video Ian talks about RDR, this came into effect in 2013. However I set up and started Solomons in 1999 on this basis – some time ahead of the majority of advisers, who moved to a transparent system because they had to. Next week we celebrate our 21st birthday – some clients have been with us since the beginning (and in fact before).

Dominic Thomas
Solomons IFA

You can read more articles about Pensions, Wealth Management, Retirement, Investments, Financial Planning and Estate Planning on my blog which gets updated every week. If you would like to talk to me about your personal wealth planning and how we can make you stay wealthier for longer then please get in touch by calling 08000 736 273 or email info@solomonsifa.co.uk

GET IN TOUCH

Solomon’s Independent Financial Advisers
The Old Mill Cobham Park Road, COBHAM Surrey, KT11 3NE

Email – info@solomonsifa.co.uk 
Call – 020 8542 8084

7 QUESTIONS, NO WAFFLE

Are we a good fit for you?

Take Survey

PRIVACY POLICY  |  DATA PROTECTION

GET IN TOUCH

Solomon’s Independent Financial Advisers
The Old Mill Cobham Park Road, COBHAM Surrey, KT11 3NE

Email – info@solomonsifa.co.uk    Call – 020 8542 8084

7 QUESTIONS, NO WAFFLE

Are we a good fit for you?

Take Survey

PRIVACY POLICY  |  DATA PROTECTION

WE ARE GROWING2025-01-28T10:08:45+00:00

SPOTLIGHT OCTOBER 2019

TODAY’S BLOG

SPOTLIGHT – OCTOBER 2019

By now as a client you should have received a copy of Spotlight. This is our own in-house publication. This issue has the broad theme of “power”. As you will have gathered, assuming that our politicians remain on course, we are now entering the election period and it will be interesting to see various manifestos. There may well be a change at number 10 Downing Street.

In the client magazine you will find an interview with several clients – Mike, Chris, Corinna and James. Alexandra Truesdale provided a piece about Will Power and the importance of a Will. Iona Bain considered some of the issues that face young people when attempting to save for their future. I also asked Angela Brooks to write a piece about the dreadful frauds and scams that she helps to rectify. There is the ususal piece “Cops and Robbers” which looks at other scams and issues that the regulators has been contending with including the Woodford funds and the London Capital & Finance Mini Bonds.

I also review the first 6 months of 2019 from an investment performance perspective, highlighting where the growth and returns came from. If you didn’t receive a hard copy and would like one, please get in touch. Click here for a digital version.

Spotlight October 2019

Dominic Thomas
Solomons IFA

You can read more articles about Pensions, Wealth Management, Retirement, Investments, Financial Planning and Estate Planning on my blog which gets updated every week. If you would like to talk to me about your personal wealth planning and how we can make you stay wealthier for longer then please get in touch by calling 08000 736 273 or email info@solomonsifa.co.uk

GET IN TOUCH

Solomon’s Independent Financial Advisers
The Old Mill Cobham Park Road, COBHAM Surrey, KT11 3NE

Email – info@solomonsifa.co.uk 
Call – 020 8542 8084

7 QUESTIONS, NO WAFFLE

Are we a good fit for you?

Take Survey

PRIVACY POLICY  |  DATA PROTECTION

GET IN TOUCH

Solomon’s Independent Financial Advisers
The Old Mill Cobham Park Road, COBHAM Surrey, KT11 3NE

Email – info@solomonsifa.co.uk    Call – 020 8542 8084

7 QUESTIONS, NO WAFFLE

Are we a good fit for you?

Take Survey

PRIVACY POLICY  |  DATA PROTECTION

SPOTLIGHT OCTOBER 20192023-12-01T12:17:09+00:00

SPOTLIGHT

TODAY’S BLOG

SPOTLIGHT – MARCH 2019

I’m delighted to announce that copies of our new client magazine are on the way to you. Please let me know what you think about the magazine. We have put a lot of effort into creating something that is hopefully educational, interesting and informative. We have some extra copies if you have a friend that might like to see some of the work that we have done, just ask and we can either send you another or pop one in the post to someone else.

I am genuinely seeking some feedback – what works, what you would like to see more of. One of the many advantages of being a small service business is that we can adapt things to suit fairly easily. The magazine is really the result of client feedback and input. Hopefully we have got the tone about right, but we always want to improve. My assumption is that we will do better.

Spotlight March 2019

CONTENTS

  • What we’ve been working on
  • Barn 6
  • Review of 2018
  • Espresso Marketing
  • Making Tax Digital
  • Now we are happily retired
  • Revealed Travel
  • Sarah walks her own path
  • The Open banking revolution
  • What’s ahead for 2019
  • Cops and Robbers

Dominic Thomas
Solomons IFA

You can read more articles about Pensions, Wealth Management, Retirement, Investments, Financial Planning and Estate Planning on my blog which gets updated every week. If you would like to talk to me about your personal wealth planning and how we can make you stay wealthier for longer then please get in touch by calling 08000 736 273 or email info@solomonsifa.co.uk

GET IN TOUCH

Solomon’s Independent Financial Advisers
The Old Mill Cobham Park Road, COBHAM Surrey, KT11 3NE

Email – info@solomonsifa.co.uk 
Call – 020 8542 8084

7 QUESTIONS, NO WAFFLE

Are we a good fit for you?

Take Survey

PRIVACY POLICY  |  DATA PROTECTION

GET IN TOUCH

Solomon’s Independent Financial Advisers
The Old Mill Cobham Park Road, COBHAM Surrey, KT11 3NE

Email – info@solomonsifa.co.uk    Call – 020 8542 8084

7 QUESTIONS, NO WAFFLE

Are we a good fit for you?

Take Survey

PRIVACY POLICY  |  DATA PROTECTION

SPOTLIGHT2023-12-01T12:17:29+00:00

TALKING MONEY – MARCH 2019

TODAY’S BLOG

TALKING MONEY – MARCH 2019

By now you will have recieved the postal copy of Talking Money. It has all the usual informative pieces. I would value your thoughts on this, do you even read it? I know some do and seem to find it helpful, but I’m not daft enough to believe that everyone reads it cover to cover. The reason for the question is that we have launched a new client publication – which we have called Spotlight. This has arrived at the office from the printers today and I’m pleased with how it looks.

You can access a digital version of Talking Money here.

Talking Money March 2019

Dominic Thomas
Solomons IFA

You can read more articles about Pensions, Wealth Management, Retirement, Investments, Financial Planning and Estate Planning on my blog which gets updated every week. If you would like to talk to me about your personal wealth planning and how we can make you stay wealthier for longer then please get in touch by calling 08000 736 273 or email info@solomonsifa.co.uk

GET IN TOUCH

Solomon’s Independent Financial Advisers
The Old Mill Cobham Park Road, COBHAM Surrey, KT11 3NE

Email – info@solomonsifa.co.uk 
Call – 020 8542 8084

7 QUESTIONS, NO WAFFLE

Are we a good fit for you?

Take Survey

PRIVACY POLICY  |  DATA PROTECTION

GET IN TOUCH

Solomon’s Independent Financial Advisers
The Old Mill Cobham Park Road, COBHAM Surrey, KT11 3NE

Email – info@solomonsifa.co.uk    Call – 020 8542 8084

7 QUESTIONS, NO WAFFLE

Are we a good fit for you?

Take Survey

PRIVACY POLICY  |  DATA PROTECTION

TALKING MONEY – MARCH 20192025-01-27T17:01:32+00:00

Talking Money Summer 2017

Talking Money Summer 2017

The latest client magazine is now available – we only do the summer magazine as a digital version – we don’t want to overwhlem you with more reading, especially as there are so many opportunities to read some good fiction over the summer! Anyway, if you’d like to have a look, it is found in the resources section of the website under client magazine.. or just click this link.

Hopefully you will have received your personal copy of our Half Year Report 2017 in the post. If not, please let the team here know and we will get a copy over to you. Oh, and thanks for the positive feedback on it and the suggestions.

Dominic Thomas
Solomons IFA

You can read more articles about Pensions, Wealth Management, Retirement, Investments, Financial Planning and Estate Planning on my blog which gets updated every week. If you would like to talk to me about your personal wealth planning and how we can make you stay wealthier for longer then please get in touch by calling 08000 736 273 or email info@solomonsifa.co.uk

Email me to get in touch
Talking Money Summer 20172023-12-01T12:18:27+00:00

Professional Adviser of the Year Awards 2017

Professional Adviser Awards 2017

I’m pleased to inform you that Solomons has been short-listed again as a finalist for the Professional Adviser Awards 2017 in the category for firm of the year – London. That’s now the fourth year in a row! Once again we are keeping some very good company with some of the best firms in London. Last year we were runner up (again) and once again I am not expecting to win – though of course I would love it if we did! This year’s short-list is also a little longer – twelve firms were short-listed.

As I have been asked in the past about how we were short-listed, in order to get this far a case study had to be submitted to the examiners. This year it was set by Jacqueline Lockie, who is the current Deputy Head of Financial Planning at CISI (Chartered Institute for Securities and Investment).

You can see the detail of the announcement here, should you wish to do so.

Professional Adviser is one of the better information services for UK-based regulated financial advisers, offering swift and comprehensive insight into developments in the financial services sector and aimed at those that generally advise “ordinary investors”. PA advise that the event is one of the industry’s best attended (and most respected) awards ceremonies every February.

Short-listed

The awards are broken into geographic regions; I have broken these down as best as I can from previous FCA information about the number of firms in each region. The FCA break the regions down a little further, with Yorkshire, West Midlands, East Midlands and Eastern all being separate categories. This is based on 5,718 firms in total throughout the UK. There are roughly 24,000 qualified advisers working at these firms.

  1. LONDON – 899
  2. SOUTH EAST – 598
  3. SOUTH WEST – 768
  4. MIDLANDS & EAST ANGLIA – 1,342
  5. NORTH EAST – 645
  6. NORTH WEST – 592
  7. SCOTLAND & NORTHERN IRELAND – 641
  8. WALES – 233

There is also an award for the overall firm of the year. Last year this was won by the firm that pushed us into second place. In all honesty, my view about awards is that they are largely a marketing gimmick, however, the PR and acknowledgement, even if somewhat questionable is welcome and hopefully conveys to our clients that we are well regarded within the field.

The award ceremony isn’t held until Thursday 9th February 2017.

Dominic Thomas
Solomons IFA

You can read more articles about Pensions, Wealth Management, Retirement, Investments, Financial Planning and Estate Planning on my blog which gets updated every week. If you would like to talk to me about your personal wealth planning and how we can make you stay wealthier for longer then please get in touch by calling 08000 736 273 or email info@solomonsifa.co.uk

Professional Adviser of the Year Awards 20172023-12-01T12:18:59+00:00

Second Place Again…

Second place again

The Professional Adviser awards 2016 were held in London on Thursday evening. I didn’t attend, frankly for a firm our size, spending around £4,500 on an evening meal up the road, just doesn’t stack up as much of a worthy use of resources, which I would rather use to invest into improving our services to clients.

It was our third year in a row as being short-listed as firm of the year for London, the largest and perhaps more fiercely competitive category. It is highly improbable that we would win given our size, the other ten short-listed firms are simply much bigger, some are national firms. Anyway, I am delighted to let you know that we were highly commended – second place, again!

So, we didn’t win, but that’s a pretty good effort isn’t it! Confirmation of the result can be found by clicking this link. #paawards2016

Thank you to the team, all those that we work with and of course our clients. There are of course lots of categories, in essence the awards are there to encourage and promote excellence. Thanks to the judges for recognising what we are trying to do.

Congratulations to London winners John Lamb, who pipped us to the post and also won the overall UK firm of the year.

 

Dominic Thomas
Solomons IFA

You can read more articles about Pensions, Wealth Management, Retirement, Investments, Financial Planning and Estate Planning on my blog which gets updated every week. If you would like to talk to me about your personal wealth planning and how we can make you stay wealthier for longer then please get in touch by calling 08000 736 273 or email info@solomonsifa.co.uk

Second Place Again…2025-01-27T16:09:12+00:00

Website Video Error

Website Video Error…

Its Friday evening and I have just checked the website to find that for some reason the various embedded videos are all missing. We are attempting to identify why this has happened and fix the problem. Sorry. Have a good weekend.

Dominic Thomas
Solomons IFA

You can read more articles about Pensions, Wealth Management, Retirement, Investments, Financial Planning and Estate Planning on my blog which gets updated every week. If you would like to talk to me about your personal wealth planning and how we can make you stay wealthier for longer then please get in touch by calling 08000 736 273 or email info@solomonsifa.co.uk

Website Video Error2023-12-01T12:19:36+00:00

Short-Listed for 2016 Professional Adviser Awards

Short-listed for 2016 Professional Adviser Awards

I am delighted to report that we have been short-listed again in the category of “Firm of the Year for London” for the Professional Adviser Awards 2016. We now have a hat-trick of finalist appearances for the Professional Adviser awards. Like most award ceremonies, we don’t find out who wins until the winner is announced, but frankly for a firm of our size, I am honoured to be short-listed.

It’s usually a good evening out, mixing with some of the top firms in the UK. One of the most unexpected pleasures about my work is the relationships with other advisers. Many of us share best pratice ideas at a level that is rare in most fields… admittedly we all have a vested interest, we all want to do our best for our clients and we also appreciate that it is in everyone’s interest to have a better educated, better advised, better serviced UK market, leading to more people being financially independent and less reliant upon the State.  Better advice means fewer complaints and reduced need for redress and hopefully lower regulatory fees.

The ceremony takes place on 11th February 2016.

Dominic Thomas
Solomons IFA

You can read more articles about Pensions, Wealth Management, Retirement, Investments, Financial Planning and Estate Planning on my blog which gets updated every week. If you would like to talk to me about your personal wealth planning and how we can make you stay wealthier for longer then please get in touch by calling 08000 736 273 or email info@solomonsifa.co.uk

Short-Listed for 2016 Professional Adviser Awards2023-12-01T12:19:48+00:00

Professional Adviser Awards 2015

Solomons-financial-advisor-wimbledon-blogger

Professional Adviser Awards 2015

Last week I attended the Professional Adviser Awards held in London a stone’s throw from the Barbican. We had been short-listed, for the second time in succession for “Firm of the Year” for London. Given our size it is highly unlikely that we will ever win when competing with much larger firms in the financial capital, frankly it is a a bit of a coup that we get short-listed. However on the back of our submitted work and the judges having a look at the firm I’m delighted to say that whilst we didn’t win, we were a close second with a “highly commended”.

Professional-Advisor-Awards-FinalistThose that know me will appreciate that I am constantly seeking ways to improve what we do for our clients. I am all too aware of short-comings and work hard to reduce or remove them wherever possible. So not winning, in this instance, feels absolutely right and yet still highly satisfying.

As it is awards season, it is customary to thank various people. So I would like to thank our clients, the staff, those within the industry that have assisted us to provide a great service, various peers that inspire and encourage me, friends and family that have been hugely supportive over the years and my wife and daughters for their support and understanding.

So in the spirit of improvement…. I’m more than willing to listen to ways that we can convey concepts to clients, produce easy to understand high quality material and promote independent financial advice within a proper financial planning context. Please get in touch if you have suggestions about how we may improve.

IMG_0381IMG_0386

Dominic Thomas

Professional Adviser Awards 20152025-01-28T14:36:16+00:00

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The Old Mill
Cobham Park Road
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Surrey
KT11 3NE

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