Lighthouse Group plc (LON:LGT), the national financial advisory group and preferred financial adviser to 19 affinity partners with a combined membership of more than 6 million individuals, is pleased to announce that Michelle Cracknell and Ann Roughead have been appointed, subject to regulatory approval, as Non-Executive Directors of the Company each with effect from 1 September 2017. In addition, Alex Scott-Barrett has been appointed as the Senior Independent Director of the Company with immediate effect.
Michelle Cracknell (aged 52) is a qualified actuary with 29 years’ experience in financial services. She is currently Chief Executive of the Pensions Advisory Service, which provides independent and impartial pensions guidance to the general public, and a non-executive director and chairperson of the investment committee at Omnilife Insurance Company. Michelle will chair the Group’s Risk & Regulatory Committee from the date of her appointment.
Ann Roughead (aged 54) is a qualified solicitor and has more than 30 years’ experience of the retail financial services market. She is a non-executive director of Columbia Threadneedle Investments Limited and Columbia Threadneedle Investment Services Limited and is a committee member of the Integrity and Ethics Committee of the Chartered Institute of Securities and Investments. She previously held senior positions with LV= Asset Management, Citigroup and JP Morgan Fleming. Ann will replace Alex Scott-Barrett on the Group’s Luceo Asset Management Investment Committee from the date of her appointment.
Richard Last, Chairman of Lighthouse, commented: “The Board of Lighthouse is delighted to welcome Michelle and Ann as new directors of the Company. Both will bring their wide range of experience in the UK retail financial services market, particularly in the areas of pension provision and asset management in the case of Michelle and Ann respectively. In addition the appointment of Alex as the Senior Independent Director reflects his breadth of experience and knowledge of the Group and is a logical next step in the development of the Board.”
Lighthouse Group Plc has been listed on AIM since 2000 as an integrated financial services company for investors, coupled with significant scale in terms of distribution through financial advisers and wealth managers and its fully diversified business model.
As one of the UK’s largest autonomous financial advice and wealth management groups, Lighthouse provides a comprehensive range of services to businesses and individuals and is retained by most of the major trades unions and other affinity groups to advise their combined memberships of over 6 million members.
The Group aims to increase its relationships with, and the benefits it derives from, its relationships with affinity groups and professional partners.
In addition to a wide range of financial advice, the Group has developed innovative products to meet the specific needs of its retail and corporate customers. These comprise:
· Luceo Asset Management, launched in September 2016 to provide a range of investment solutions to retail investors. The initial solution comprise five multi-manager, fund of fund, investment portfolios matching to customers’ agreed risk profiles, with Octopus Investments Limited as the initial Investment Adviser. These are available across a number of platforms, including the Lighthouse Zurich Platform, in partnership with Zurich; and
· The Lighthouse Pensions and Life Trusts, unbundled multi-employer Master Trust products that provide cost-effective and one-stop shop solutions for small- and medium- sized enterprises (“SMEs”), to meet their obligations to establish auto-enrolment compliant pension schemes for their employees by 31 March 2018 (up to 1 million SMEs have to do so) and provide death-in-service life assurance cover for all of their employees aged between 16 and 65, for the same cost per benefit, at very competitive rates, regardless of age, gender, location or pre-existing medical conditions. The Lighthouse Pensions Trust is listed on the Pension Regulator’s website as an approved Master Trust for the provision of auto-enrolment pension scheme services.
