The Morning Briefing: Tenet appoints new CEO to replace Helen Ball; urgent reform of LoA process needed

Good morning and welcome to your Morning Briefing for Thursday 25 April 2024. To get this in your inbox every morning click here.

Tenet appoints new CEO to replace Helen Ball

Tenet Group has announced that after 13 years with the business, Helen Ball will be standing down as CEO.

She will be succeeded by Stephen Vickers, who is currently the group’s program director.

Tenet said Ball had agreed with the Board it was “the right time for her to stand down” following the sale of its wealth and investment network to The Openwork Partnership and its mortgage and protection advisory network to LSL Property Services.

Calls for urgent reform of the LoA process

A new report has estimated that £442m is wasted every year due to ‘inefficient’ Letters of Authority (LoA) processes.

According to the white paper, published by The Pension Lab, the LoA procedure takes an average of 130 minutes to process, costing approximately £111 each.

And it warned things are only going to get worse, with the delivery of Pensions Dashboards in 2026 expected to increase LoA volumes eight-fold.

Should aspiring advisers consider self-funding for Level 4 exams?

It is common for would-be financial advisers to start as an administrator at an advice firm that funds their Level 4 diploma, writes Amanda Newman Smith.

Why, therefore, do some new entrants prefer to study independently and pay their own way through the exams?

Quote Of The Day

The decision to separate is one thing, but the thought of having to sell the family home or work out who gets what pension isn’t one to be taken lightly

– Faye Church, chartered senior financial planner at Investec Wealth & Investment, explains why so many people considering divorce decide they cannot afford to do so

In Other News

UK dividends had a positive start to 2024, according to the latest Dividend Monitor published by global financial services company Computershare.

Payouts rose 4.9% to £15.6bn and were boosted by higher one-off special dividends, with 95% of Q1’s payers either increasing dividends or holding them steady.

Regular dividends, which exclude these volatile one-offs, were £14.7bn in Q1: up just 2.0% on a constant-currency basis, with most sectors delivering steady, low single-digit growth.

The brightest spots included the airline, leisure and travel sector, where payouts are finally rebounding from the pandemic (although they remain some way below pre-2020 levels).

The caterer Compass is also benefiting from the recovery in global travel, and its large increase pushed dividends from the consumer-goods sector higher.

The Dividend Monitor cited the impact of share buyback programs on long-term dividend growth: with around 30 large British companies currently running such schemes, they are spending around three times more on stock repurchases than a decade ago.

Japan feels inflation heat from Fed’s ‘higher for longer’ shift (Financial Times)

Zuckerberg asks for patience after Meta’s AI push irks investors (Bloomberg)

Barclays Q1 profit falls 12% (Reuters)

Did You See?

Tributes have been pouring in for former Labor minister and pensions advocate Frank Field following his death at the age of 81.

Lord Field of Birkenhead was central to inquiries into defined benefit pension transfers, the collapse of BHS and Carillion, the FCA’s approach to Sipp supervision and the government’s cold-calling ban.

He chaired the work and pensions committee from 2015 until 2019, when he lost his seat at the general election after more than four decades as an MP.

Field died in a London care home on Tuesday night following a “long battle with cancer”.

He revealed he was terminally ill in October 2021.