Fairstone, one of the UK’s largest Chartered Financial Planning firms, has boosted its footprint in the North West with the acquisition of Octagon Wealth Management.

The woes of Woodford Investment Management have been well chronicled by Financial Planning Today and others. I will not repeat them hear suffice to say that the curtain is coming down on a painful episode in fund management, as Mr Woodford described it himself.

The Financial Planning profession is heading in a new direction and there’s no better evidence of this than today’s (11 October) PFS Graduation Ceremony in the august surroundings of the Merchant Taylor’s Hall in the City of London.

A report published by Octopus Group at the beginning of August, reported that “almost a third (29%) of financial advisers polled said they expect to retire within the next five years, rising to 6 in 10 (58%) within the next ten.” This is “equivalent to more than 15,000 financial advisers leaving the profession out of a current total of over 26,600.”