Informed Choice has brought its number of financial planners up to six with the appointment of Dermott Whelan, who joins following stints at Morgan Stanley and Fidelity.
Whelan worked on Morgan Stanley’s discretionary management team within its private wealth division, and has also been responsible for manager selection as a member of the investment solutions group at Fidelity.
Informed Choice joint managing director Martin Bamford (pictured right) welcomed the appointment.
‘We are delighted to welcome Dermott to the team and we are sure that his investment experience will prove to be invaluable when working with clients to deliver financial planning services,’ he said.
‘This appointment is part of our strategy to grow the scale of Informed Choice. As a retail distribution review-ready firm, we look forward to taking advantage of the opportunities being created for firms such as ours over the coming months and years.’
Fellow joint managing director Nick Bamford (pictured left) has meanwhile given up his directorship of Informed Choice (South West) a Bath-based IFA firm with which Informed Choice has historical links.
Bamford has given back his shares in the firm after working with it for over a decade.
The plan back in 1998 was for Informed Choice (South West) to merge its client base into Bamford’s Informed Choice, but the firms drifted from that aim.
‘Over the last decade we got to point where that firm could stand on its own feet,’ explained Bamford.