In an industry where optimism is conspicuous by its absence these days, Bob Woods, executive chairman of successful pension consultant Mattioli Woods, makes a refreshing exception. Having advised the AIM-quoted company’s clients to exit the stock market ahead of the credit crunch, he says he is looking forward to the acquisition opportunities he expects to be thrown up by the Financial Services Authority’s review of the retail distribution of financial products.

Differing from many of its peers by taking hourly fees rather than commissions – and, arguably, able to give more objective advice because of that – Mattioli Woods takes a long-term view, based on research, boasts Woods, who criticises much of the pension industry for its short-sightedness. The Leicestershire-based company acts for some 3,000 self-invested personal pension schemes and small self-administered pension schemes, and Woods reckons the UK market for these will over ten to 15 years grow from about 400,000 to three million in the upheaval now gaining momentum.

Sharply critical of the present tax treatment aspects of such schemes, Woods likes to retain some personal client work for himself, ‘to keep in touch with the market’. At present, he also likes prime commercial property in the UK: ‘We’d be happy to buy at yields of 5.5 per cent on the right terms.’

Mattioli Woods	AIM	£38.12m	221.00p	0.00p
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