A Widow’s Ruin?

Dominic Thomas
Sept 2024 • 4 min read

A Widow’s Ruin?

The summer often produces plenty of occasions to open a bottle of bubbly as we celebrate various events or are simply enjoying ourselves. Perhaps this summer you have celebrated something, maybe a wedding, an anniversary, a big birthday or one of your family graduating. Champagne is invariably linked with celebration.

Living in the Surrey Hills, a short walk from Denbies, I have come to appreciate some of the English attempts to create Champagne – though of course we cannot call it such as it’s from Surrey not the Champagne region. I’m informed that the geology of the Champagne region of France is shared with Dorking (probably not news to the geologists amongst you). Anyway, perhaps you have your favourite – English, French, Spanish or Italian.

When it comes to naming things properly, I was intrigued by the story of Veuve Cliquot (in French meaning Widow Cliquot) which has now made the transition from a 2009 book by Mazzeo to a musical and now to film and is being retold at selected cinemas, so may be one to catch at home for most people.

The story is of the woman behind this now historic and luxurious brand. Business owners will relate to some of the struggles that she faced and conquered, not least of which were the weather, Napoleonic wars and general misogyny of the day. Women will relate, frankly because things have not moved on anything like as much as they should!

Quite how much is fact or fiction isn’t really that important; the messages of the film are there to be taken. Tenacity, optimism, acknowledgement of an inability to control the things you cannot, acceptance of the reality of things; stoic fortitude ushers in change by remaining true to principles and high standards. This is all beginning to sound a lot like the qualities that investors need to attain isn’t it.

I did not know the story and I was unaware of the meaning of ‘veuve’ – my O’ Level French has never been tested beyond very enjoyable trips to France. Whilst I am a regular consumer of wine, I wouldn’t regard myself as an expert; but I have come to enjoy Champagne over the years!

What I find generally inspiring are the stories behind many well-known companies. The original ‘Founder Story’ has been an often neglected element of most marketing, including our own. As Solomon’s celebrated our silver anniversary this summer, I was reminded that perhaps this is a little more than simply reminiscing. Of course there are many Founders and characters that are entirely unpleasant, which is often a subjective opinion, but sometimes … well not so much. Today, we are in a highly inter-connected world and we are all aware of particular billionaires or multimillionaires who are lacking any of the attributes that demonstrate much humanity.

I will never meet Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin who died in 1866 and I am highly unlikely to meet Mr Musk; but I have formed an opinion about both, based on the values that I hold. Yet this is perhaps the heart of the complexity of ethical, socially responsible or ESG investing. The world is complex, people are many things. To some, holding shares in an alcoholic beverage company is unethical, yet holding shares in Twitter (or whatever he wants to call it) invariably will not be screened out of portfolios. The focus is based on the product rather than those behind them.

How we use or minds, tools, resources, time and money are our unique choices and important to each of us being true to ourselves – however many selves we might each be, have or become. I can tell you that I shall be favouring (revealing my biases) the widow’s Champagne. A young woman who was widowed at 27, took on an embryonic vineyard, battled social norms and obstacles, fought for her own financial independence, eventually turning it into a legacy of quality, used in moments of joy and celebration. Now, that’s something that I think is worthwhile.

Here is a trailer for the new film produced by and starring Hayley Bennett, along with Tom Sturridge, Sam Riley and Ben Miles:

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A Widow’s Ruin?Jemima Thomas2024-09-23T12:32:17+01:00

Remembering Montmartre 1899

Solomons-financial-advisor-wimbledon-blogger

Remembering Montmartre 1899

It is 1899 and I’m at the latest Secret Cinema event, transported back in time to Montmartre, Paris in 1899, arriving at la vie Boheme – the Moulin Rouge. We are greeted by Monsieur Zidler and shortly bump into a certain Henri, one Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec with friends and then serenaded by a new young writer. We marvel at the guests, who like ourselves are not themselves, but suitably attired for their profession in 1899.

Most will not be familiar with Secret Cinema, it is, after all, secret and has a tag line, reminiscent of Fight Club – Tell No One. The concept is simple – gather a crowd of film lovers to come along to watch a movie together. The twist is that its immersive to the extent that there is a successful attempt to create the feeling of being in the movie, with not simply “sets” but landscapes to explore. Engage, (in character) with the actors who perform their screen roles before and during the screening of the film. It’s a lot of fun.

Champagne Lifestyle

Sadly not all in Montmartre was 1899 – the prices certainly were not. A bottle of Champagne (well why not? after all Monsieur Pol Roger died in 1899 and Jules Medot founded the Champagne house Louis-de-Custine in 1899) at the Moulin Rouge was £40 and as we all know that doesn’t go terribly far… So pandering to my slightly sad interest in inflation, I wondered what the price of Champagne was in 1899 and whether it was possible to re-inflate it back to 2017. Sadly the £40 price tag for a bottle of Champagne in 2017 wasn’t deflated to the 1899 price of just 33pence (best attempt)…..probably just as well, £40 then would have bought 121 bottles. Inflation is arguably the most underestimated element that any investor must contend with and must be factored into any sensible financial plan.

Returning to the 70’s?

Many are currently suggesting that due to Brexit and the unfathomable Mr Trump, we are (collectively) in for a bumpy ride, perhaps something akin to the 1970s. If this does indeed become the case, presumably we can expect power cuts, strikes, industrial meltdown, oil price hikes and rampant inflation (well, by British standards anyhow). Personally, whilst I’m not pretending that everything is well, I don’t have a bleak outlook and find many of the scaremongering, nothing other than a tune for peddling. It is probably obvious to you by now that I’m not a fan of Mr Trump, or Brexit,

Inflating the figures

Anyway, back to the inflation issue and the 1970s. Remember that for the power of your £1 to remain the same it needs to keep pace with inflation. How inflation is measured is of course hugely contentious. We tend to use CPI and RPI as the most common metrics. That said, there often seems to be a disconnection between the rising prices of things you personally pay for and what the Office of National Statistics say they are. This isn’t a political jibe, if most of your spending is on utilities, then it’s likely that your personal rate of inflation is rather higher.

How do you remember the 1970s?

For the record, £100 at the end of 1970 was £364 by the end of 1980 because of the inflation (RPI) in the 1970s, which increased 9%, in 1971 then 7.6%, 10.6%, 19.2%, 24.9%, 15.1%, 12.1%, 8.4%, 17.2% and 15.1% in 1980. This represents an average annualized inflation rate of 13.3%. The FTSE All-Share achieved an average annualized return of 12.2%. So didn’t quite keep pace with inflation and saw some huge market declines (-28.6% in 1973 and -51.6% in 1974) Any investor that lost their nerve at the end of 1974 would have missed out on the 151.4% recovery in 1975. These huge changes eventually ushered in a fundamental change in monetary policy and “Thatcherism” in an attempt to control the supply of money and inflation specifically.

Think and act life-long

The advantage of standing back and considering a long term approach is that the short-term volatility of a year or even a decade reinforces the rarely practiced investor skills of discipline and patience.

If you are interested in Secret Cinema, here’s the promotional trailer. Click here for the link to their website, where you can find out about many of their immersive film experiences, but tell no one…

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

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Remembering Montmartre 1899Dominic2023-12-01T12:18:39+00:00

Royal Baby worth £243m to UK economy… come again?

Well you certainly did not hear it here first. The Royal family has an new heir. The media coverage was and presumably continues to be… well, rather daft. Our “news” channels seem unable to deliver much to us these days other than speculation and anecdotal opinion from.. well pretty much anyone that wants to be on the airwaves.

So I was intrigued to see an estimate from the Centre for Retail Research based in Nottingham that suggested the new baby would generate “around” (seems like a fairly precise number to me) £243m for the UK economy. This is money spent on “stuff” that ultimately gets counted. Now, perhaps I’m out of touch on this, but I hadn’t noticed a whole lot of “festivities” which account for £87m. This is on extra food, drink and parties to celebrate the birth…I think I must be short of an invite or two, but really? An estimated 3m bottles of sparkling wine or champagne opened to celebrate this specific event…(where?) I suppose I’m not disputing the numbers, perhaps they are right, but 3m of a 60m population about 5% of people will actually go and buy an extra bottle of bubbly to celebrate, that’s one in twenty (aged 0 to 100+). Sound right to you? This is not bubbly that they already bought, or due to an anniversary (quite a lot of people marry in the summer)..or finish school or Uni…this is extra bubbly.

The CRR also allocate £80m for souvenirs and toys. Well this is plausible, have you seen the price of London trinkets lately? Add to this a further £76m for books, DVDs and “other media”. They even suggest that pram sales will rise 13%, which I find rather incredulous, do people really decide to have children as a result of a member of the Royal family having a baby? well apparently so.

As you may have gathered, I have some reservations about the accuracy of such forecasts and predictions. If they are correct, then perhaps we should request that the Royals reproduce every year! We would soon be out of our economic doldrums…or at least somewhat overcome by the festive hats and DVDs.

I’m not in anyway knocking the Royal family. Of course the birth of a baby is, in this instance, delightful news to his parents. What I get rather concerned about is the way our national governance and economic well-being is reduced to unproven figures, be it inflation, royal birth, benefit cheats, illegal immigration, crime, cost of the Olympic games or a BBC inquiry. I am of course mindful that the figures may well be right, but they certainly don’t sound remotely accurate.

Dominic Thomas: Solomons IFA

Royal Baby worth £243m to UK economy… come again?Dominic2023-12-01T12:23:48+00:00