Stockton-based firm Vintage Chartered Financial Planners has celebrated nearly three decades in operation by moving into spacious new premises, having doubled turnover during the past five years.
Vintage provide independent financial advice to individuals, trustees and business owners to help them build, manage and protect their wealth.
After a steady growth throughout the majority of its 28-year history, the past five years has seen Vintage more than double its turnover.
The firm is now actively looking to recruit high quality Chartered financial planners to work alongside its existing team of 10, with its spacious new headquarters providing plenty of additional office space for new arrivals.
Vintage kicked off as a partnership back in 1988 in a small Middlesbrough town centre office, in a building now transformed into real ale pub The Chairman and high-end pizza palace Barbarosa within the town’s bustling new Bedford Street regeneration.
But the business recently relocated to a modern new home on Lockheed Court within Stockton’s thriving Preston Farm business zone.
A spacious boardroom, conference facilities, additional meeting space and airy, open-style offices across a 2,400 sq ft ground floor building has provided Vintage with a HQ that is both a fitting venue for one of the region’s only chartered financial firms but also a statement of intent.
The move is designed to prepare for further expansion as Vintage builds on its relatively recent transformation from a firm serving only individual clients to one serving a much wider breadth of clients including an increasing number of businesses.
The recent boom has been driven by the firm’s business development specialist Sam Tate, who has been rewarded for the key role he has played in transforming both the firm’s image and growth is his appointment as managing partner.
He joins Chartered financial planner Steven Hodgson and financial planner Paul Adams, who founded the firm as Vintage Investment Services in 1988 with Sam’s late father Adrian.
Paul said: “I am delighted to welcome Sam as a partner in the business. Adrian would have been extremely proud of his achievement.”
A qualified financial adviser by the time he was 23, Sam left Vintage for pastures new in 2006 before returning five years ago with a new business development remit.
“I was brought back in specifically to bring in new business and to help develop our existing strategies,” he explains.
“The financial market has transformed beyond recognition since Paul and my dad launched the business 28 years ago.
“So one of the things we looked at were areas where we felt we were missing opportunities. Even just a few years ago we were almost solely looking after individuals.
“Whilst we’ve continued to grow and improve our services to individual clients, we also spent more time going out there to win new win new clients and have developed strategies to help businesses with their protection and group pension needs.”
But Sam, who is now responsible for the firm’s strategy, planning, marketing and core management duties, insists that what has been achieved to date is just the start.
“We’ve achieved so much over the last few years but our new premises put us onto a whole new plain.
“Within a relatively short space of time we’ve achieved Chartered status – which is the gold standard of excellence and integrity within the financial sector – and substantially increased our turnover.
“It’s been a slow burn over nearly three decades but we’re now positioning ourselves for further growth. Exciting times are ahead.”
Sam is one of two recent Vintage promotions. Having achieved a Diploma in Financial Planning, Helen Weatherhead has been promoted from paraplanner to become one of the firm’s four financial planners.