Pearson Jones' success in fighting off the recession

The Leeds-based independent financial adviser (IFA), which has four offices, saw pre-tax profits fall from 884,000 to 805,000 despite unprecedented stock market volatility. Pearson Jones, which has 105 staff including 43 advisers, working out of its head office in Leeds and satellite bases in Sheffield, York and Bishop Auckland, continued to win new business,including stockbrokers and private banks.

The company, which was founded in 1972 and has a 7.1m turnover, outsources client investments to a large number of fund management groups.

New investments made on the CofundsInvestment Platform was 54.37m,up from 51.85m in 2008.

Tim Johnson, Pearson Jones managing director,said: "We're satisfied with our performance in 2009 when our clients continued to invest in spite of a global recession and global stock market volatility.

"Although profits were down slightly, this is a sector where many IFAs saw significant reductions in profitability and many others reduced staff numbers due to turmoil in world investment markets.

"The tough climate highlighted the fact that many transactional IFA businesses had a wrong, and outdated, financial model, relying on commissions from new investments to fund their own businesses.

"This approach always causes problems in a recession.

"We are a wealth management business not a transactional IFA, which means that our clients pay us for ongoing good-quality professional advice in good times and bad.

"We do not rely on commissions from new investments to pay our staff.

"As a result, we maintained our staffing levels during 2009 to ensure that we were well placed to benefit from the recovery and continue our high level of service.

"This has already been proved correct this year and we expect to continue to benefit as we continue to manage clients' wealth wisely in a tough economic climate."

Pearson Jones, which offers wealth management, mortgages, pensions and employee benefits, tax and trust planning, advises more than 2,000 private clients and 500 businesses with total funds under management of more than 1bn.