Pensions, ESG Investing and afternoon tea with George Kinder

IMG_1609Winter is coming and the Turkeys are starting to get a bit nervous about their fate as the shops start to stupidly put their Christmas decorations up even before the fireworks have started.  With only the Dundee event remaining we are bringing an end to the years CPD events especially since the Bank of England had to pull out of the events in Glasgow and Edinburgh as they’ll be under purdah restrictions until after the election.    
In Edinburgh last week we held a fabulous event at Blackrock where we heard from Royal London on the Hot Topics for Pensions, Legal & General on ESG Investing and Dimensional discussing Perspectives & Possibilities: Boomers, Gen X and Millennials. If you missed it then head on up to Dundee on 21st November.  
Clare Moffat of Royal London presented on the legislation changes relating to the State Pension, before moving onto discussing the main concerns raised by the Retirement Outcomes Review and how you can comprehend the issues with IHT and pensions.  After a short coffee and a Tunnocks Tea Cake (thanks Blackrock) Dan Attwood took to the floor. His talk on where ESG Investments where and how using active ownership L&G are trying to help improve the corporate agendas.  Finally, Blair Anderson from Dimensional took us through the Dimensional survey to their network of IFAs which was looking at the attitude of the different age groups regarding investments and financial advice.  Its comforting to know that although there are differences between the ages that there is more that bind us although when relaying this to my teenage son, he still rolled his eyes, sake!
There was still a chill in the air for the start of the Glasgow event this week as I walked up Bath Street to the Adobe Hotel for the 9:30 start. Jeremy Martin of Just started the day off with a couple of hours CPD presenting on the Six steps to better retirement outcomes. He took us through the developing consistent and robust advice processes before we had a lively debate on recognising the importance of establishing the client’s capacity for loss.  We then turned to the sustainable income and the recognition of guaranteed income within your retirement.  The last section touched on cash flow modelling, withdrawal policy and the review process.  
Just before the lunch was served George Kinder arrived.  If you haven’t heard of George before then his bio says that he is internationally recognised as the father of the Life Planning movement, revolutionised financial advice for over 30 years by training over 3,000 professionals in 30 countries in the field of financial Life Planning. This was his first visit to Glasgow; he was taking the opportunity to discuss his latest book A Golden Civilization and the Map of Mindfulness. This was a slight departure from our usual events but for those in the room it was quite inspiring.  He started talking about his 3 questions, but his key thing was to listen to your client; not how we normally do but really listening and on focusing solely on them.
After a cup of tea, George invited us to imagine a thousand generations had passed and humanity had at last accomplished a golden civilisation. What did it look like and what structures got us to this utopia before asking what is stopping us from making the change in just one generation? I’ll let you read and investigate yourself on his ideas and make up your own mind. In the room however there was a willingness to listen, learn and debate.  A truly unique talk and if you want to know; do I now have his book? the answer is yes.
Maybe a different perspective to be considered but the feedback from the room was fantastic and maybe we should be considering CISI events can deliver something more than just hours.