Howitt joins Nucleus as first finance chief

Published on Saturday 21 June 2008 15:19

EDINBURGH-based Nucleus Financial Group has poached Neil Howitt from St James's Place to become its first chief financial officer.

Nucleus, which runs a 'wrap' platform allowing independent financial advisers (IFAs) to store all their clients' investments in one online account, says it plans to make up to another three senior appointments over the summer.

The firm, part-owned by South African financial services firm Sanlam and the IFAs who use the platform, launched in December 2006.

Its chief executive, David Ferguson, says it is on course to make a profit by the end of the year, turning around the 1.4m loss it reported for the 12 months to December 31 2007.

It has 400m assets under management and aims to grow this to 1bn by 2009. It employs 17 staff and 54 IFA firms use the platform.

Howitt, 43, who joins Nucleus in August, was finance development director at wealth management firm St James's Place and before that he worked for J Rothschild. Ferguson said: "I've known Neil, who is a qualified actuary with a lot of experience of finance, for about 10 years. We're a start-up firm that has got to the stage of needing to be more robust and have more depth."

He added that the company is looking into how it can expand to provide other financial services.

Howitt said: "Nucleus has already established itself at the leading edge of the dramatic changes in our industry and the opportunity to be a part of this was too good to miss.

"I have known the firm's chairman Paul Bradshaw and David Ferguson for many years and the prospect of working with individuals of their quality and profile is very exciting."