Reflecting on 2020

Merry Christmas, From Lifetime

2020 certainly has been a year we will all never forget. On behalf of Lifetime, I would like to personally thank all of you for being supportive as we adjusted to our new way of working throughout the lock-down periods. On a positive note, our team took the opportunity to reach out to as many clients as they could whilst working from home, with positive feedback and a chance to sit and have a good chat.

Despite the turmoil, Lifetime has had a busy and exciting year. With a new regulatory environment for financial services coming into full play on 15 March 2021, we have embraced our core value of continuous improvement in the ongoing professional development of the Lifetime team. Having now been granted a transitional Financial Advice Provider license by the Financial Markets Authority (FMA), we are well prepared and eager to embrace this new environment of financial services.

In September, we welcomed Eddie Longman to the team. Through the merging of his business Inrich Financial Services into Lifetime, this provided an opportunity to consolidate and expand the range of services both businesses could deliver to clients in the Waikato region. Eddie, who is a Certified Financial Planner, has over 30 years of experience in our industry and is keen to support the development and growth of the Lifetime offering within the region. As a temporary measure Eddie has moved into the Lifetime Hamilton office, however, we are currently working on a plan to relocate to larger premises in Hamilton early next year.

During the year we managed to relocate the Auckland and Nelson teams into new offices. First was the merging of our Auckland based teams in November moving them from three separate centres into one new office at Level 11, The Shortland Centre, 55 Shortland Street, Auckland - right in the heart of the city and close to plenty of parking buildings.

As we closed out the year, we also re-located our Nelson based team who moved into their bright new surroundings at 51 Halifax Street, Nelson taking over the previous AMI office. The two teams would like to invite clients to call in and say hi and see our great murals reflecting the best of local scenery in our meeting rooms.

Given the tough year we embarked on a study to gauge feedback from you, our clients, to see whether you thought Lifetime was meeting your needs. Thank you to everyone who has been asked and taken the opportunity to complete our client survey. The feedback has been really positive and provided us with a good guideline on how we are tracking with delivering our Advice For Life philosophy and helping clients to meet their financial goals. Internally we have been nurturing our Lifetime culture, working with our team to live by our guiding principles of people first, integrity, teamwork, courage and continuous improvement. We are proud to say that our internal staff culture survey gave fantastic results, cementing that Lifetime is truly a wonderful company to work within.

As you wind down and reflect on the year that went and plan for the one ahead, we wish you all safe travels over the festive season and hope you get to enjoy a relaxing Christmas break with family and friends. We will look forward to 2021 and working with you next year.

Peter Cave, Managing Director
Lifetime