Eldon Financial Planning, based near Darlington, has become the latest Financial Planning firm to become employee owned.

The firm announced its plans in March 2020, just before the lockdowns began, and converted to employee ownership today. 

Chartered Financial Planner Gemma Siddle, director of client services, said: "We’re all absolutely thrilled to have made the transition into employee ownership today. Building our ethos of teamwork for the best client outcomes over time into the business, in this way, is an exciting step for us and our clients. We're delighted and excited for the future."

Eldon operations director Kevin McCarthy, said: “We know businesses thrive when employees have a stake in their success, with better resilience and innovation. We’ve always had a culture of this but transitioning it into the core of our ownership, with accountability at all levels, is a great platform for our future.”

In an exclusive Q&A in Financial Planning Today magazine two years ago, managing director Tony Conner and award-winning Eldon director of client service Gemma Siddle, talked about plans for employee ownership for the firm which sees staff as ‘family’ and goes to great lengths to develop long-term relationships with clients."

You can view the Q&A here http://bit.ly/30ra4a5 

Eldon is now owned by an Employee Ownership Trust (EOT) - the so-called ‘John Lewis’ model.

Prior to setting up of an Employee Ownership Trust, most shares (about 87%) were owned by Eldon managing director Tony Conner and the rest were owned in varying amounts by the team. All shares have now gone into the EOT. 

Mr Conner said the firm had ruled out a sale to a third party as too big a risk to the firm’s personal service ethos. As part of the transition Mr Conner, the final founding director of the firm, has mainly ‘retired’ other than sitting on the board, working a handful of days this year.

In the Q&A, Mr Conner, a Chartered Financial Planner, said: “We have always considered Eldon as a family rather than a group of employees. A sale to a third party could have led to too many changes and too great a risk to the people involved. The answer for us is to transfer the ownership of the business to an Employee Ownership Trust (EOT).”

The company is following a growing trend for some Financial Planning firms to become employee owned. Bristol-based Paradigm Norton and Ovation Finance have both gone down this route.

Eldon, based in Newton Aycliffe, near Darlington, has doubled in size over the past six years and plans to take on more Chartered Financial Planners at a steady pace.

• Editor's Note: story updated 21.03.22 with additional details of EOT implementation.