Lighthouse Regulatory News (LGT)

Lighthouse Group plc

('Lighthouse' or 'the Company')

Financial Adviser Awards: Large IFA of the Year

Appointment of Roger Sanders OBE

Lighthouse Group Plc announces the appointment of Roger Sanders OBE as Managing Director of LighthouseGEB, its group employee benefits division.

Lighthouse Group Plc (AIM:LGT) announces the appointment of Roger Sanders, as Managing Director of LighthouseGEB with effect from 05 July 2010. Roger has over 40 years' experience in the financial services industry, and first-hand knowledge of advising employers, trustees and scheme members in the manufacturing and service industries. He will continue with his existing external roles, including that as a non-executive director of the Financial Ombudsman Service.

Malcolm Streatfield, joint CEO of Lighthouse Group Plc, said:

"We are pleased that Roger has joined us at this time to spearhead our employee benefits proposition to corporate clients and Lighthouse advisers alike. Our group employee benefits division is already well established, with a 10 year track record, and Roger has our full commitment to grow our offering to meet both the increasing demand for corporate advice and the need for employers and trustees alike to control costs. Additionally, his considerable experience of regulatory and industry issues will further underpin our ongoing business expansion plans and strengthen the attractiveness of our proposition to those IFA/intermediary firms and individual advisers sharing our vision."

Roger Sanders, Managing Director of LighthouseGEB, said:

"The opportunity of joining Lighthouse to drive forward its plans for employee benefits and workplace marketing, in order to satisfy the needs of both the mass affluent and, more particularly, the aspirationally affluent, was just too good to miss. With over 25 per cent of UK workers not in a pension scheme, the opportunities thrown up by Government plans for auto-enrolment need to be addressed by intermediary firms; those achieving the required economies of scale and developing a focused specialist approach will be the winners in this race. Lighthouse has already left the starting blocks and has a tremendous team in place; I am privileged to be asked to join them."

ENDS

Notes to Editors:

1. Lighthouse is one of the largest financial adviser groups in the UK, with over £6 billion of funds under advice. The Group is cash generative, profitable and dividend paying.

2. Lighthouse has in excess of 800 IFAs across the UK providing financial planning advice to both private and corporate clients. 

3. It provides national coverage through offices in the City of London, Brighton, Bristol, Exeter, Leeds, Stockport and Dunfermline. 

4. Lighthouse won the prestigious "Large IFA of the Year 2010" award earlier this year from FT Business/Financial Adviser.

5. LighthouseGEB looks after 350 corporate clients with over 1000 benefit schemes at its new administration centre in Stockport. Its sister operation, Lighthouse+, also based in Stockport, provides specialist individual and bulk pension transfer advice services to employers, trustees and scheme actuaries.

6. Malcolm Streatfield, joint CEO, is the IFA member of the statutory Financial Services Practitioner Panel and serves on the council of the Association of Independent Financial Advisers.

7. Roger Sanders has over 40 years experience in insurance, financial services and pensions and was recently recruited from Helm Godfrey Partners Ltd where he had been deputy chairman and head of employee benefits and with whom he had merged his IFA practice in 2005. Prior to that he had run his own business since 1983 which followed 15 years service with Sun Alliance, including a spell with Jardine Mathieson in Hong Kong.

8. Additionally, from 2000-03, he was the UK director of iHilal Islamic financial services and Rasmala Investments, developing shariah compliant products and advisory services, and served on the Bank of England's working party on Islamic finance.

9. He has had many years first-hand experience of advising on pensions throughout the UK; he worked with the DWP on a number of projects, including the "Informed Choices" initiative for improving access to workplace advice, and also served on the committee that oversaw the industry SIB Pensions Review of 1994/98.

10. Roger was a non-executive director of the PIA until 2000 and chaired the FSA's smaller businesses panel from 1999-2004. He was a founding member and director of the Association of Independent Financial Advisers in 1999, serving as deputy chairman until 2005, and chaired the EU life and pensions committee of the European Federation of Insurance and Investment Intermediaries in Brussels 2004/06 whilst also being appointed as the UK's retail market representative on the practitioner sub-committee of the Committee of European Securities Regulators (CESR) in Paris between 2004-2009.

11. Roger was awarded an OBE in 2002 for services to financial services regulation and has been a non-executive director of the Financial Ombudsman Service since 2005. He is a vice president and council member of the Insurance Institute of London and chairman of its financial services committee.

12. Roger is interested in 500,000 ordinary shares in Lighthouse Group plc.

- Ends -

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