The March meeting of Cotswold branch was hosted by Zurich in their splendid offices in Bishop’s Cleeve, near Cheltenham.

Despite the meeting not attracting as many attendees as usual, possibly as it was so close to the end of the tax year, delegates enjoyed a lively session.

They welcomed two speakers, Rob Worthington from JP Morgan and Jackie Beard from Morningstar. Rob introduced a novel way of looking at segmentation of clients by their demographic category.

By considering the lifetime contribution of clients to the business he indicated that generation Y born in the 70s and 80s should not be ignored by planners. Delegates posed challenging questions.

Jackie provided a comprehensive and interesting review of investment trusts and why planners should consider them as part of a client’s portfolio. She also provided some insight into Morningstar’s research into companies and how co-operative the managers were at providing the detailed advice. Morningstar provided comprehensive research on 45 investment trusts and they are being brought into the new classification system being established following the merger with OBSR.

Diane Weitz CFP^CM, branch chairman, said: “Thank you to Zurich for their generous support and thanks to both speakers for generating such lively discussions”.