Stephen’s gone from ‘my way’ to mellow

Jul 22 2008 by Sue Scott, Evening Gazette

A £4,000 Business Link grant in 2001 has seen Stephen Gibbens’ financial services firm grow to handle well over £45m of investments. He welcomes tighter regulation of an industry that’s been pilloried for its handling of other people’s cash, as JEZ DAVISON reports.

STEPHEN Gibbens is not your average financial services adviser.

The smart suit sits easily on him, but he has more in common with a tub-thumping self-starter like Alan Sugar than many of his fellow professionals. Stephen is his own man and for much of his career it’s been his way or no way at all.

Having discovered that his entrepreneurial instincts didn’t quite fit with the conservative nature of his former bosses, he set about building a business which provides a unique blend of legal and financial advice and has more than £45m of investors’ cash under management.

But seven years on, the Guisborough-born solicitor-cum-independent financial adviser admits he’s starting to mellow. “I’ve been more ready to accept the opinions of others and be tolerant of people who do things another way,” he says. “I have always been - and still am - highly driven, motivated and ambitious. Maybe in the past I allowed myself to get frustrated when people didn’t achieve targets at my speed.”

Launched in 2001 with a £4,000 Business Link grant and a fair chunk of Stephen’s personal wealth, The Solicitors Financial Centre was designed to help lawyers and solicitors cope with a tightening in financial services regulation.

It was an auspicious time to launch. In December of that year, one of the biggest changes to the UK financial services industry took place with the arrival of the Financial Services Authority (FSA). Pilloried recently for its involvement - or more specifically its lack of involvement in the Northern Rock crisis - it became the sole regulator of financial services. In recent years its scope has widened to include mortgage business and general insurance activities.

Under the FSA’s watchful gaze, many legal professionals stopped referring clients to independent financial advisers (IFAs) for fear of legal implication if the advice turned out to be poor.

For Stephen, a qualified solicitor and IFA, the regulatory climate highlighted a pressing need for companies that could provide financial and legal advice, under one roof.

In September 2003 he renamed his firm Trustlaw Financial Services - which advises on trusts, tax and investments - and launched the specialist law firm Gibbens Solicitors.

He believed - and still does - that well-run firms can restore the reputation of an industry battered by accusations of mis-selling and maladministration.

But the recent case of Equitable Life suggests that widening the FSA’s powers hasn’t exactly been an unmitigated success. More than a million people have been left with reduced retirement savings after the life insurer fell into financial difficulty. The FSA has been roundly condemned by a Parliamentary report for failing to ensure that the company could afford to pay its debts.

Stephen believes the case highlights the inability of one body to regulate such a complex industry, and welcomes a further tightening of the current regulatory framework. He says: “The FSA’s increased powers have given much more clarity to financial services, but I’m in favour of further legislation to boost industry standards.”

Stephen’s quest for quality fast-tracked a career that took him from fresh-faced undergraduate to company owner in seven years.

After graduating with a law degree from Sheffield University in 1994, he gained his legal practice diploma from York College of Law the following year, before becoming a qualified financial adviser at his father Brian’s general financial services practice, The Leven Partnership, in 1996.

He left in March 2000 to join Middlesbrough law firm Doberman Horsman, where he became a qualified solicitor, but left 18 months later. Stephen wanted to generate extra business from other law firms, but the partners – who were 30 years his senior - disagreed.

Establishing his own business was the inevitable result. After handling £3m of investors’ cash in his first year of trading, he’s grown this figure exponentially and during the next seven years hopes to have more than £100m under management.

Increasing wealth on Teesside suggests there’s plenty of scope to boost margins considerably. Stephen has gone from handling investment portfolios of typically a few hundred thousand in 2001 to several millions today. Many of his clients are beneficiaries of large inheritances or wealthy former SME owner-managers.

Stephen has recruited his father to work as a pensions expert, but insists it wasn’t a charitable gesture. He’s known as “Brian” in the office and strict divisions between family and professional life are maintained.

“There may be a little frustration on his part that things are done my way now, but we have a good working relationship. He taught me the value of client servicing and I wouldn’t be where I am today without that advice.”