New Ashcourt Rowan boss sets ambitious 1,000 day target

Ashcourt Rowan Asset Management’s new chief executive officer Mark Cheshire has set the company the ambitious target of doubling the size of the business in 1,000 days.

Two months into his new role, the ex-Lloyds Private Bank chief (above) said organic growth was his primary focus and points to the efficiencies and enhanced capability resulting from the merger of the two Syndicate-backed companies, Ashcourt Asset Management and Rowan & Co.

Cheshire has purposefully left the target rather broad, but said he sees a substantial increase in both assets under management and revenues over the 1000-day period as plausible. Meanwhile, he expects bottom-line profit to more than double, as the efficiencies from combining the back office functions of the two businesses feed through.

‘We are winning business from referrals from existing clients and have long and valued relationships with accountants and law firms. We are increasingly seeing clients leave big banks due to brand contamination, a lack of empathy and trust or a continually changing relationship manager. There have also been some pricing of charges that have not been as transparent as they should have been. There has been complete dislocation in the banking sector,’ he added.

Meanwhile, the new CEO has highlighted the retirement and pre-retirement space, alongside business owners, entrepreneurs and the ultra high net worth as areas he is keen to focus on and potentially develop new propositions for in the future.

He also hopes to merge the separate investment processes employed by Ashcourt and Rowan in the future.

‘There is still work under way to build on the strengths of the business. One is how we roll out a series of investment propositions, drawing on a series of models which Ashcourt Rowan can offer. Whether a client has £50,000, £100,0000 or £5 million, we have a compelling proposition. I envisage a centralised investment process and further up the value chain for the high net worth and ultra high net worth, where a client has a financial planner and a wealth manager managing their money,’ he said.

Cheshire said the firm is looking into how collectives and model portfolios could help to bring about efficiencies for smaller clients as he examines ‘the economies of delivering the service proposition’, but added that he is keen not to disturb some of the long-term multi-generational relationships that some of the investment managers have established with their clients.

Looking ahead, the new CEO is optimistic on the prospects for the UK's wealth management industry.

'In financial services the only place you want to be is in wealth management. Only 17% of investable assets in the UK is with wealth managers. Out of the G7, the UK has the highest proportion of households with $1 million plus of investable assets. Depite the issues and a mixed outlook, it is a wealthy country and it is under-served by wealth managers,' Cheshire said.