Two chartered financial planners with private banking backgrounds are set join an existing UHNW team of three based at Guardian’s new Mayfair offices in London, the company said in an update statement.
After the arrivals of “two industry heavyweights in the form of Mike Coady and Darren Jones”, the company said its plans now included “focusing on aggressively expanding its ultra-high net worth offering”.
Coady, who joined Guardian with immediate effect in December last year as chief commercial officer, said he was “extremely confident” that 2017 would be the firm’s strongest year to date and cited high growth in new business during January.
The total number of financial advisers working at Guardian rose to 62 by the close of 2016 from 38 at the end of 2015, and the goal is to double this figure during 2017, the firm said.
A key part of this growth would be around building on its already established presence in Dubai and Switzerland, and its recently opened office in Abu Dhabi.
Joint chief executives John Hasberry and David Howell said in a combined statement that Guardian had spent years carefully building the foundations of a brand, and that “now is the time for us to utilise our resources and experience to penetrate new markets and build new business opportunities around our current proposition”.
Coady’s new role at Guardian follows his sudden resignation from rival deVere on 2 December last year, having clocked up 12 years of service.
His current brief is described focusing on “increasing market share through both the expansion and ability of existing offices and through the opening of additional regions, new brands and the development of further technology supported distribution channels”.
