Good morning and welcome to your Morning Briefing for Monday 1 December 2025. To get this in your inbox every morning click here.
Foster Denovo extends platform partnership with Third Financial
Foster Denovo has extended its partnership with Third Financial, part of the Nucleus group, signing an exclusive deal for a bespoke Adviser-as-a-Platform (AaaP) solution.
The platform is designed to meet the needs of advisers and their teams, enabling them to service clients “more effectively”. It also features a two-way integration with the back-office system.
Looking Ahead: Season of goodwill, Budget of hard truths
December may be the season of goodwill but this year for advisers it begins with something far more prosaic: sifting through the fine print of last week’s Budget.
Far be it from us to compare Rachel Reeves to Ebeneezer Scrooge, but the chancellor’s 26 November performance does have echoes of the Ghost of Christmas Past, especially when we consider the broad tax-raising measures from the previous Budget.
Like everyone else, the Money Marketing team is still digesting the contents, but in the lead-up to Christmas we will be zeroing in on every line, chart and footnote – from pensions and tax to investment and regulatory reform — to understand what it means for you and your clients.
Quilter Financial Planning adds five firms to its network
Quilter Financial Planning has welcomed a further five appointed representative (AR) firms to its advice network since September.
Quote Of The Day
I believe we are on a rate-cutting trajectory but the pace will be slow and measured, at least in the UK we know it will be. In the US, the dynamic will change depending on who comes on the board of the Federal Bank
– Dynamic Planner chief investment strategist Abhi Chatterjee on the likelihood of interest rates cuts in the UK and US
Research from Scottish Widows shows women are 12 times more likely than men to take a career break to raise children, exacerbating the pensions gender gap.
36%
of women face poverty in retirement.
24%
of women by age 55 have been out of work for more than five years, which could result in a £70,000 hit at retirement.
40%
of women did not plan financially for their career break and 56% never considered the impact it would have on their retirement.
42%
of women found that the break in their career reduced their ability to save.
30%
increase in gender pensions pay gap since 2024, which now stands at £113,000.
Source: Scottish Widows
In Other News
Legal & General’s Asset Management business has announced three appointments to further strengthens the leadership of its Index & ETF team.
Boyang Liu has been appointed to a new role as head of systematic solutions, leading investment strategy, research, Index and Systematic solutions design and execution within the Index & ETFs business.
Elena Cardella has been appointed head of investment specialists, where she will focus on enhancing client propositions and the delivery of L&G’s Index & ETFs investment strategies, from specialist index to segregated mandates and ETF solutions.
Chirag Pandya joins as the new head of ETF capital markets, responsible for ensuring efficient primary market access and client execution as well as overseeing secondary market quality and surveillance.
From Elsewhere
Ex-UK minister Tulip Siddiq gets two-year prison sentence in Bangladesh (Financial Times)
Rachel Reeves denies lying about UK finances pre-Budget (Bloomberg)
Asian stocks slip; yen firms as Ueda comments boost rate hike hopes (Reuters)
Did You See?
The amount invested into Venture Capital Trusts (VCTs) through Wealth Club, the UK’s largest VCT broker was up 538% the day after the Budget, versus the average November day last year.
Total VCT applications hit £2m on the 27 November, up from an average £319,700 last year.
This spike comes after plans were announced in the Budget (26 November) to cut income tax relief on VCTs from 30% to 20% from April 2026.
During the Budget, the chancellor also announced that she would be reforming the UK’s venture capital schemes, allowing the Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) and VCTs to invest more money in more mature businesses.
This was a change the Venture Capital Trust Association was campaigning for.
VCTs were introduced in 1995 and are investment vehicles that were set up to promote investment in small UK businesses that meet certain criteria.
