Our history

The origin of our company can be traced back to the 1930s which was when a firm of accountants called Benjamin, Kay and Brummer, three partners, started trading in the West End of London.

Of course their business was accountancy not investment advice but back in those times the financial advisors of today did not exist, so very often accountants provided guidance on investments for their clients.

Following various changes in partners, by the 1980s there were three partners with the surnames of Gould, Harris and Morris who decided to set up a specialist investment firm to provide advice to the clients of their accountancy business.

They used the initials of their surnames and formed GHM Financial services which eventually became incorporated in 1992.

The IFA firm then grew during the nineties and was eventually sold to management by the turn of the century. In 2002 the managing director of the firm, Jim Cummings, decided to retire so the decision was made to sell the firm.

At this time Richard Dunbabin was engaged on a project, as a consultant, by a firm of insurance brokers based in Wokingham called BJP Insurance Brokers Ltd. The project was to find an IFA business which could be embedded into the business and culture of BJP and used to provide complimentary services to the general insurance clients.

An introduction to GHM financial Services was made to Richard and following due diligence a deal was agreed and the business purchased on February 13th 2003.

Due to changes in legislation from the Financial Services Authority BJP decided not to incorporate the IFA business into their general insurance business. The decision was made to run the IFA business independently, under Richard's control, and under a new name.

Therefore at this time the business changed its name to Ascot Lloyd Financial Services Ltd.

From 2003 to 2008 Ascot Lloyd, under Richard's ownership and control, grew both organically and through the acquisition of eight more IFA firms and relocated to new premises in Wokingham from where they continue to trade today.

Toward the end of 2009 Richard was reintroduced to Pat O'Hara who was running his own, successful IFA business, in Rickmansworth.

Richard and Pat had originally met in the 1980s when Richard ran his own IFA business in Oxford and Pat worked with an investment firm called Sun Life.

Pat left Sun Life in the late eighties to set up an IFA business of a general insurance broker in Rickmansworth called LRG. In 1991 he was head hunted by a local firm of accountants to set up an IFA business for them. The IFA business that Pat established for the accountancy firm was called Dickinsons Financial Services and, as part owner from the outset, Pat ran the firm and also advised clients.

During the expansion of the firm throughout the nineties Pat acquired an increasingly larger share of the business until by the new millennium he had acquired the business completely.

Once becoming the new owner of the business the name of the firm was changed to Planitplus in order to reflect more accurately the investment work undertaken for clients. Pat and Planitplus put into place sophisticated processes and procedures for investment advising and soon realised that the systems they had could be used by more IFAs.

On the other hand, Richard had built a business with distribution capability but lacked the type of processes that had been developed by Pat at Planitplus.

Richard and Pat soon realised there were many synergies within their businesses so in January 2010 they merged their businesses retaining the older of the two entities, Ascot Lloyd Financial Services Ltd., whilst maintaining the trading name of Planitplus and its investment process.