And so that’s it, we’re nearly ready to put the cork in 2024. This is your last Update of the year, and what have we learned? Hopefully as little as possible; self-awareness is a curse, and as Calvin and Hobbes said when picking themselves up out the briar patch before hurling themselves down the hill one more time, “careful! We don’t want to learn anything from this!” So as we get ready to hurl ourselves down the hill one more time we are allowed a moment of reflection to be sure, perhaps to celebrate that which needs celebrating or to make amends for that which needs amending, but beyond that? Helmet on, goggles on and down we go again. 

Normally in the last Update of the year I avoid all business, but too many pesky scamps, tearaways and ne’er-do-wells have snuck Things out in the last week and I think our year won’t feel complete unless I pop a bit in here about them. So rather than the links at the bottom, here they are now with a thought or two on each one to send us on our way. 

First up, oh those WASPI women. As you’ll no doubt have read, there is to be no bunce for what Gregg Wallace would doubtless call les femmes d’un certain âge if he were French, which he isn’t or at least isn’t as far as I know. That’s not important right now. What is important is that surely this is the best advert for retaining the services of a financial planner there has ever, ever been and any planning firm who isn’t buying billboards right now with “WE’D HAVE MADE SURE YOU KNEW” is missing a trick. It is also quite fun watching senior government ministers – irrespective of your politics – wriggle as they try to rationalise why they said one thing when in opposition and another in government.  

Second, let’s jump over to D2C world for a minute and note that Vanguard has popped a cheeky little £48pa minimum on its platform offering. You don’t care about this because of all the affluent clients and whatnot you’ve got, but over in the other world this is quite big news. Vanguard is a bellwether for the digital investing market, and this is perhaps a sign that the aggressive pricing that’s characterised this market may soften a bit in 2025. Even Vanguard needs to make money…I do wonder if next year will be a time when cheap-but-loss-making propositions start to lose favour as everyone remembers that you can’t spend other people’s money forever and you can’t pay salaries with market share.  

Talking of spending other people’s money, read this piece in Citywire on PE debt-funded acquisitions. This is the best trade piece I’ve read all year and a great illustration of what a tear Citywire is on at the moment. Returning to politics, this is all obviously an echo of Thatcher’s quote that “the problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people’s money” which was a good line but actually applies to late-stage capitalism. Is life weird or what? It’s definitely weird.  

Letters of Authority have been a theme of 2024 – what fun! – and Pension Lab has just put out an index of the times some of the biggest firms achieve in turning them round. These range from decent to horrible, and even this index is just a subset of the market. All anonymous – perhaps you might play a fun Christmas game to guess who’s who – but a useful illustration of how far the sector has to go. There are multiple organisations working creditably to try and improve this, and all in all might we reasonably hope that 2025 sees an end to this issue? Probably not. Careful! We don’t want to learn anything from this! 

NEARLY DONE 

Before I leave you, a couple of house notices – Tom’s last podcat of 2024 has Nick Raine from Soderberg on it and if you’re into platforms or even if you’re not it’s well worth a listen. Amazingly there were 24 podcats in 2024, and while I refuse to believe that was deliberate, if there aren’t 25 in ’25 then nothing means anything any more.  

And thank you to those who’ve booked onto the next #langcatlive – Divide And Conquer – in Kings Place on 6 February. It’s filling up nicely and you’ll see a full agenda out in the next day or two. If you’d like to join please don’t leave it too late – we won’t be streaming this one – and book on here. Free for advisers, planners, paraplanners, administrators. £100 plus the tax for everyone else.  

THANKS ATTACK 

And so that’s it for ’24. Thank you to all who’ve given us gainful employment this year – you have done a great public service in keeping a small army of 27 – count ‘em! – cats off the street, and if you ever watched Top Cat then you know what a pain street cats can be. Every last one of you is sagacious, sartorially impeccable and irresistible to potential partners of your preferred gender. Thanks to those of you who’ve read our stuff, including this nonsense – this is the end of year 6 of the Update, meaning there have been around 300 of these ridiculous emails. And thanks to everyone who’s put up with us doing what we do in whatever way. 

My biggest thanks go to the remarkable lang cat team – I never once dreamed when setting up in 2010 that I’d end up with such a bunch of talented people who could easily go and work pretty much wherever else they wanted and probably for more money. Please don’t do that. I promise I’ll do better. 

2024 hasn’t always been fun; there’s been lots to remember in a good way of course, but there have been things that I’d definitely change if I had a do-over. And in our little company we’ve felt for those who have lost loved ones as well as celebrated the arrival of another lang kitten in the shape of Finn Bredin. May he grow to sport as tremendous a moustache as his father. 

However it’s been for you, I hope you too will fail to learn any lessons and so we can all go again next year. 

Last thing – as you know the Top Class Wednesday Update has a no-repeat policy for the music choice. But rules are made to be broken, and this is the fourth year I’m unapologetically giving you the same perfect song. There aren’t many perfect songs, but this is one of them and if you have someone you can share a perfect song with, pour them a cup and drink the night younger with them if you can. Too much is never enough. Here’s Merry Christmas My Darling (Drink Up) by Lowri Evans and Tom McRae – also responsible for one of the most memorable gigs of this year. And yes, you’ll be getting this again in 2025.  

See you on the other side.

Mark