2023 / 2024: A note from our MD…

Happy New Year all and welcome to 2024. If you’re reading this after Jan 15th or so, apologies, that’s way too late for new year messages in my opinion.

I like to write these letters/blogs at the end of one year and the start of another, as a little reflection if you will.

2023 objectively speaking was a good year for myself and for Engage. I will come back to that shortly, but I hesitate to say ‘good’ because the evolution of a war in middle east hangs over us, a large number of our clients and our community in North London. I hope that 2024 can bring peace and a lasting resolution. I’m not sure if I believe this is possible, but I will always be hopeful. Above all else, this is my wish for 2024.

So…back to 2023.

Engage as a business grew revenue by c20% - a brilliant achievement in what was a pretty uncertain economic background. This doesn’t include the revenue from the Kench & Co acquisition, although this will have an impact 2024 so expect this number to have another big jump next year!

Our profit wasn’t up as significantly. It was c10% up which is still good, but we had additional staff costs and the administrative costs from onboarding 30 new clients. We’ve improved our marketing strategy and launched our newsletter, we’ve streamlined our processes to be more efficient and I feel that we’re now in a position to really escalate our growth.

We have the people in place to support additional new clients, we have the processes in place to streamline the onboarding process and our investment strategy change has really given us a boost that we will continue to see the benefits of in the years ahead.

2024 for us is about growing our client base, improving our app/tech and continuing to evolve our service to better serve our clients.

One small piece of news which I’m sure most clients are aware of is that Emily is now on a 7-month sabbatical travelling the world (you can read more about her travels here). We’re obviously delighted for Emily that she’s going on this amazing trip, we’re proud to be able to support her in living her life to the fullest and we’re delighted that she’ll be coming back. I was a little sad to see her go though of course, as we’ve worked closely together for over 3 years now and she is a brilliant team member. Supporting her growth and development and seeing her achievements has been a high point for me as a business owner. The team will all miss her whilst she’s away, both personally and professionally.

Stevie will be paring back from her non-essential operational work throughout our annual review period (Jan to April) to support me, and Michelle will be doing extra days to support myself and Toby, so we’re all chipping in to pick up the slack. Speaking of Toby, I can’t review 2023 without mentioning that he achieved his level 7 CFP. This is an incredible achievement as it’s the highest qualification in our profession, surpassing my chartered status. Not only that, but he passed first time without any amends to his submission. This is very rare and a huge credit to him and the work he put in.

Finally, it’s worth noting that 2023 provided really good investment returns despite the challenging economic conditions mentioned. Depending on the level of volatility our clients should see between 8-13% returns. This is always positive news, as we want our clients to benefit from the returns of the market and, after a tough 2022, we’re back on track.

I look forward to seeing all our clients over the coming months in our annual reviews but, as always , I’m available to catch up if anything changes in the meantime, or if there is anything we can help with.

Here’s to a happy, healthy, peaceful 2024,