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As regular listeners will know, every other Tuesday on my show in the mornings
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we talk to Christina Brady from Black Tower Financial Management and been doing it for a while now, so always some useful stuff imparted
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and especially over the last couple of years. What I thought we do here is just once every quarter is catch up with
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I'd hesitate to call him a head honcho there. We're talking about Group MD and founder of Black Tower Financial Management
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John Westwood, John, hi. Hi, good morning, good afternoon, wherever you are in the world. Hi
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Well, it's morning where you are. You're based in the Cayman Islands, right? I'm currently in the Cayman Islands
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I'm working here for the company at the moment. We've got a project over in this part of the world
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so we're spending a little bit of time here just putting that project to bed
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So normally I'm based in Gibraltar. I have to be here for this particular purpose
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Yeah, I mean, we do make clear because although we talk about some of the tax implications
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between Spain and the UK, that sort of thing, with Christina, very much an international company
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Yeah, we are. We've grown enormously over the last 10 years from sort of the beginnings in the United Kingdom back in 1986 when I started the business
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So now the company has a considerable global footprint really offices throughout the United Kingdom America the Cayman Islands Trinidad Zabago down in Chile which you believe and also soon in Panama
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And we're just opening in Switzerland and in the UAE later this year
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So it's grown enormously. Absolutely. And that's some time in business as well
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And we always like to point that out because it's a pretty good sign for people looking around for a company to invest with
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that, A, the size you are now, but also the length of time
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And the things you've seen over the years as well, I mean, starting in 86
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you've been through a few ups and downs as far as the economy goes, that sort of thing
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especially worldwide even. Yeah, that's really true. I mean, the biggest one being, of course, 2008, which was very severe for everybody concerned
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in the financial markets and indeed consumers as well. So, yeah, I've seen some difficult times, and we've had to make, you know
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during those times, emergency decisions to protect clients' assets. It can be quite testing, but I think the test is, being around from 1986
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you've seen a lot and you've gained an awful lot of experience in how to look after people assets and financial affairs over that period of time Sure I mean the big crash in 2008 as you say you can sort of see that coming a little bit I sure with you you watching everything with people investments at stake
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But how much can you do? It's not just how much you can do to avert a major crisis yourselves
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It's an interesting point. I think financial crisis starts to brew and you can start to tell when you can see a
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financial crisis brewing. Sometimes it kept you, like the 2008 one. We saw it perhaps happening, but when it happened, it was extremely quick
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I mean, effectively, it happened on September the 29th, 2008, when world just changed
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And markets went down 30 and 40%. So nobody actually saw that coming
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But in hindsight, I think, you know, one can protect oneself against that now
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And certainly the financial institutions and the financial markets are much better
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placed to understand how these things happen and protecting the downsides for client
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investments. In 2008, I don't think we ever believed it could crash that far. We now, we know
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it can And I think the industry as a whole has grown up and understands those particular problems And that kind of thing I would be very surprised if it was allowed to happen again Sure And of course yeah you seen that come and go And if there anything I learned from Christina it about diversification
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and not putting all your eggs in one basket. So, you know, spreading the risk, as it were
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Yeah, absolutely. It's the key to all financial planning is to spread your risk over a wide broad range of assets
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Assets also that suit your purpose and your attitude. to investment. I think one of the things that people often get wrong is the way they invest
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and the type of investments they make. We often see persons with money, which really they can't
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afford to lose. So you're looking at capital protection. When you examine the portfolio
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it's just taking too much risk. So you've got to be very careful and listen to the advisors
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in judging and understanding the level of risk you're prepared to. take and of course also equally is important it's the time you're prepared to invest as well
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time time is a great key to normal investment and stock markets and if you can stay in the market
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and take that little bit of extra risk you'll probably be rewarded but if you're in retirement
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perhaps you don't want to take those
