The balance sheet overleaf remains very strong, and reflects healthy profits in the year ending March 2018. We continue to attract a good inflow of high quality new customers and attractive new business (despite concerns over asset prices).
Henry, Sir David and Richard Hoare, with a combined tenure of 182 years at the bank, have recently stepped down from the partnership, but remain employed as consultants. Their record is extraordinary: the balance sheet footings stood at £8.4m when Henry joined the bank in 1953. Customers and colleagues should all be grateful to their stewardship over the years.
Rennie Hoare (aged 32) became a Partner at the end of May. His early training was at Threadneedle Investments and subsequently at T. Rowe Price. He is also our Head of Philanthropy and oversees Messrs. Hoare Trustees, which is seeing something of a renaissance with its donor-advised fund. In essence “the Master Charitable Trust” gives customers (and non-customers) all the benefits of their own charitable trust, with none of the headaches.
The last year has seen a considerable amount of internal change and reorganisation. This is somewhat unfamiliar to us, but may well become the new norm if we are to rise to the disruptive challenges facing financial services imminently.
I apologise for the amount of written communications about routine matters from the bank recently. Harper’s law postulates that all progress results in inconvenience.
This may turn out to be another China century. Confucius explains in principle how to keep the bank constant: “They must often change, who would be constant in happiness or wisdom.” Lao Tzu explains how to do it in more detail: “Respond intelligently even to unintelligent treatment.”
Alexander S. Hoare
July 2018
