Gilliat Financial Solutions, part of Arbuthnot Banking Group, has initiated a strategic review of its structured products business, resulting in its first redundancies. Several colleagues, including business development manager Anita Brand, are in the redundancy consultation period.
"We are confident about the market for structured products in 2010 despite the difficulties faced by the structured products industry as a whole over the last six months," said Gilliat managing director Adrian Neave. "Interest from IFAs and investors has increased markedly and we feel there are enormous opportunities in 2010 for Gilliat Financial Solutions. We are now well positioned to take advantage of this."
A Gilliat spokesperson declined to comment further as the review is still in progress but stressed that Arbuthnot remains fully committed to Gilliat and the opportunity for an independent provider of structured products distributing through IFAs.
Arbuthnot announced late last week that following substantial intervention in the structured products arena, it will start a strategic review and undertake some restructuring to align itself to reflect those changes.
Gilliat Financial Solutions entered the UK structured products market back in September 2009 and is headed by Neave, a former Keydata consultant.