Musings about the benefits of an ethical investment approach, the uncommercial nature of small deposit accounts and the demise of yet another company crippled by its pension scheme liabilities are on Richard Harvey’s mind this month.
Last year I wrote about ethical investments in IFA Magazine, asking if the time had come when putting some of your clients’ savings into funds which benefited the world and its poorer citizens was more financially and morally rewarding than, say, having shares in British American Tobacco.
I’m not sure if Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, is a reader of IFA Magazine (I suspect probably not), but his image appeared prominently in recent media coverage of the cracking returns made by the Church of England’s ethical endowment fund. Last year it returned a respectable 17.1%, doubtless prompting the church commissioners to celebrate with a goblet of low-alcohol mead.
It was probably a welcome relief for them, following some unwelcome publicity about their indirect investment in much-vilified payday lender Wonga, and an ill-timed splurge on commercial property just before the sector went belly up.
On the up
Shrewd, too. The Sunday Times, quoting analyst Vigeo Eiris, reports that ethical investing is growing rapidly, with more than £15 billion now invested in UK-based ethical and sustainable funds, up from £11 billion five years ago.
It would take a brave investor to withdraw entirely from shares in booze, betting or ‘adult entertainment’ (could you ever admit to your mates that you had shares in the latter?).
But given that the Church of England clearly has God on its side, IFAs might usefully be reminded of the attractions of ethical investments potentially as a route to some decent returns for clients.
Another one bites the dust
I was sad to see that the long-established Kent Messenger newspaper group, on which I trained as a junior hack in the days of clattering typewriters, hot metal and stroppy print workers, has just been forced to sell up after being crippled by its pension liabilities.
While the KM did the decent thing by sacrificing its own independence in the interests of sustaining pension rights for its employees (sadly not including me), it is just the latest example of a scheme magnificent in its original concept but ultimately destroyed by unforeseen 21st century circumstances.
Contrast that with the estimate that some 76,000 present and former EU officials have been promised around £60 billion of retirement and healthcare benefits, with an average lump sum of more than £700,000. It is entirely unfunded, of course, and recently described by an IFA chum as “the biggest Ponzi scheme in history”.
Guess what’s top of the EU’s list of post-Brexit financial demands?
Sent from Coventry
Among my list of former savings schemes was one run by the Coventry Building Society. I duly copped a decent return, and when the scheme came to an end, withdrew my lolly and went elsewhere.
Somewhere along the line, the Society seemed to have underpaid me by a few pennies, which since then have racked up to a mighty £6.24.
Every year, I receive an expensively-packaged and bulky wodge of literature, reminding me of the amount and the annual interest still accruing – this year it’s 12p.
I’m trying to summon up the willpower to talk to someone at the Society to tell them to use the money to buy some lunchtime sandwiches for head office staff or stick it in the charity kitty. I thought I’d closed my account years ago, even if they beg to differ.
