Altorfer Financial Management Ltd Independent Financial Advisers

ALTORFER NOMINATED FOR THIRD TIME! - January 2008

For the third successive year, Altorfer had been nominated for the prestigious New Model Adviser Award for the Greater London area. Although we did not win the award, Altorfer is now the only company to have been nominated in the top five London companies in every one of the three years since the awards commenced. This is a tremendous achievement, and underlines the consistency of our business model. The awards are organised by the financial media group Citywire.

FUNDS UNDER MANAGEMENT PASS £114 MILLION - January 2008

Altorfer starts 2008 with funds under management now exceeding £114 million. This is an increase of over £10 million during 2007 - a creditable result given the problems and volatility in financial markets.

BACK FROM THE SEA - AGAIN! - August 2007

Managing Director Roger Taylor is safely back from his single handed voyage to northern waters. Strong headwinds prevented him from reaching the Arctic Circle. He did, however, get to the coast of Southern Iceland and also fulfilled his ambition of circumnavigating the whole of the UK and Ireland, including Rockall.

NEW ADMINISTRATOR - August 2007

We welcome our new administrative assistant Katy Calcaterra. Katy is very experienced in Financial Services, having spent 8 years working for the Nationwide Building Society. She is looking forward to getting to know all our clients.

£110 MILLION MARK REACHED - June 2007

Funds under management have now reached £110 million, just 8 months after breaching the £100 million mark. We are delighted with this rapid growth ~ a combination of excellent investment returns and new funds coming under our management. We are on track for our end-of-year target of £115 million.

ANOTHER YEAR ANOTHER VOYAGE - June 2007

Managing Director Roger Taylor heads off shortly on a single-handed voyage to North-East Iceland and the Arctic Circle. Once again this will be in his 20' yacht Mingming, in which he sailed to the Azores and back last year. This will be a tougher (and colder!) voyage lasting about six weeks. If conditions are favourable he hopes to sail back via Rockall to Plymouth.

ALTORFER NOMINATED AGAIN ! - January 2007

For the second year running Altorfer was one of the five nominees for the New Model Adviser of the Year Award 2007, for London and the Home Counties. Last year, the inaugural year of the award, we went on to win it. Against such stiff competition it was too much to expect to win the award for a second consecutive year. However, it was a great honour to be named once again in the very top group of London's advisory firms.

£100 MILLION MARK REACHED - October 2006

After just under 16 years in business, Altorfer client investment assets have passed the £100 million mark. This perhaps signifies the coming of age of the company - the transition point from a small growth enterprise to a mature established player in the financial management field.We are now thinking about a viable target time for doubling those assets to £200 million. Five years? As a separate exercise we have also been tracking the values of our client real estate holdings.When these are added in, total Altorfer client wealth is now close to £1/4 billion.

BACK FROM THE SEA - September 2006

Managing Director Roger Taylor is now back at work after his three months' long service leave. During his leave, Roger sailed, single handed, to the Azores and back in his 20' yacht Mingming. The company continued to operate smoothly in his absence. Funds under management have now reached almost £99 million, and we hope to breach the £100 million mark within the next few months. This will be a major milestone in the development of the company.

ALTORFER WINS TOP AWARD! - January 2006

I am very pleased to let you know that Altorfer has just been named New Model Adviser of the Year 2006, for the London and Home Counties region. The award comes from Citywire, the financial publisher (part owned by Reuters) who publish New Model Adviser magazine. From a UK starting population of about 6000 companies, seven regional awards were made, with Altorfer winning the prestigious London accolade.

The 6000 companies were analysed in detail by both Citywire and independent actuarial consultants AKG. There were a range of criteria covering financial performance, growth of funds under management, business model, client relationships, expertise, qualifications and so on.
Particular emphasis was on the extent to which companies had re-engineered themselves to deliver a comprehensive advisory, rather than sales-based, service.

I am still recovering from the shock of having to go on stage to receive the award at a black tie dinner in the City of London, when an hour earlier I was not even aware that we were one of the six London nominations. Fortunately I was not required to make a speech!

The other news is that after 20 years of relentless effort to build the company, with no more than two consecutive weeks' leave during that period, I will be taking some extended 'long service' leave this summer. I will be away for eight to ten weeks from the beginning of June.

Altorfer now has an extremely experienced and efficient team, who will have no difficulty 'running the shop' during my absence. Planning is already under way to ensure that there is minimal disruption to the normal sequence of annual reviews.

Inevitably there will be some reorganisation during this period. However I am sure that I will not be begrudged a short period of respite after two decades of unremitting effort!

Roger Taylor