Astute Wrapped 2025
2025 has been a huge year here at Astute Private Wealth, and as the year comes to a close, we wanted to reflect on everything we’ve achieved together. We have welcomed new clients and continued to provide our exceptional service to existing ones. We have expanded our reach, with new videos being watched by more of you than ever. Within Astute we have celebrated fundraising efforts, personal and professional milestones and had a bit of fun along the way too. We appreciate all of your support throughout this year and look forward to what 2026 holds. With that said, let’s get into Astute Wrapped 2025….
January:
We started 2025 fresh and hit the ground running, as in the New Year, we chose our 2025 charities, Nightingale House Hospice and Claire House Hospice, by staff vote, whom we have continued to raise funds for throughout the year. The first Astute baby of 2025 was welcomed, and we began our annual Client Seminar series. The seminars highlighted the importance of updating your Will, explored the uses of AI in financial planning and emphasised that, as market volatility is inevitable, it’s important to stay invested, a message that has echoed throughout the ups and downs of this year! We had a record 135 clients attend this series of seminars, and we look forward to seeing both familiar and new faces at our 2026 instalment.
February:
Our seminars concluded in February, receiving great feedback from those who attended. We were delighted to present the funds raised in 2024 to our previous years charity partners Parkinson’s UK and Tiny Stars – both excellent charities which we were proud to support.
This month, Hannah and I hit the road to film our client testimonial videos. We welcomed clients into the office and were also welcomed into our clients’ homes to hear their stories and experiences with Astute. The final videos now have pride of place on the home page of our website. Thank you to all of our clients for your participation and warm welcomes into your homes.
March:
Our Strategies to Avoid Inheritance Tax YouTube series reached its halfway point this month with the upload of our second video, The Power of a Will. We celebrated the success of the women in our firm on International Women’s Day and had our first office charity day of 2025. Some of our directors took part in challenges, we had raffles and auctions as well as a 100-mile cycling challenge, raising £750 for our chosen charities, a great start to our 2025 fundraising efforts.
April:
April saw our Investment team highlighted, with the main focus this month on Trump’s Tariffs and how Scott and the investment team dealt with the market volatility that ensued thereafter. Our IHT series concluded this month as our most successful YouTube series to date, amassing 23 thousand views. Our LinkedIn page hit 500 followers and we launched our Facebook page, enabling us to reach clients in a new place and connect with our community in a new way. We also celebrated the retirement of four colleagues in April, a fitting send-off for some fabulous people who were much-respected members of our Astute team.
May:
Our social media was in the spotlight in May, with new launches and milestones. Founded in 2023, our YouTube channel has seen significant growth this year, hitting 400 subscribers in May and almost doubling to 780 at the time of filming! Thanks to all the new faces who have joined us this year, and if you haven’t already, why not hit the subscribe button whilst you’re here so you don’t miss any of our future videos? We launched our first YouTube Short this month, 5 Tips to Avoid IHT, which remains our most-watched Short to this day. Our social series, Financial Tips, highlighted seven of our financial planners’ top tips across the following months, thanks to all the planners who took part.
June:
We started June with some fantastic news for our Astute Investment Management team, as the Conservative fund was recognised as the Best Fund Group in Mixed Assets – Conservative GBP category by CityWire Wealth Manager. And the good news kept coming with our Mortgage Adviser Joanne formalising her protection expertise with an exam pass. Our marketing and communications team began a pivotal Summer in June with the release of our freshly designed client brochures: Your Guide to Astute, Understanding Our Investment Approach and Managing Investment Risk, kicking off the gradual rollout of our fresh designs.
July:
In July, our YouTube channel turned two years old, and we had four releases during this month: our Social Care Costs video, Are Cash ISAs Under Threat video and YouTube Short as well as our Mansion House Speech Response Short featuring our Mortgage Adviser Joanne.
August:
In August, we welcomed new members of staff across our Chester and Liverpool offices, extending our team with fresh talent. 12 members of staff, family and friends took part in the inflatable 5k for our 2025 charities, climbing, sliding and running around a course of inflatable obstacles, a fun day all round. Our website had a full refresh this month, bringing new features such as the client testimonials, simpler access to insights, as well as new ways to get in touch. We were proud to highlight the excellence of our Female colleagues, celebrating Hannah and Jess who were both deservedly shortlisted for Professional Adviser Women in Finance Awards.
September:
The speculation around the Autumn Budget began to rise in September, prompting us to release our most viewed video yet, ‘addressed some of the many questions we were receiving from clients ahead of November’s budget. There were some personal and professional milestones reached this month, with us welcoming Kate back from her Maternity Leave and waved Hannah off on hers. Rod passed his protection exam and has since gone on to pass more exams too! Our team also had a well-deserved day out at the Chester races; it’s not all work at Astute!
October:
October saw the release of our Tax-Free Cash video on YouTube. We jumped on this quickly, following an influx of client queries, providing a holistic approach to show you why you should and shouldn’t take your tax-free cash. This video sparked a lot of conversation between viewers in the comments, even if the proposed changes never came to fruition!
November:
November was a big month for Astute with both Hannah and Rod welcoming new additions to their families, a foyer refresh in the Liverpool office and two bits of award news. We were proud to listed in the CityWire New Model Adviser Top 100 again, and our new website has been nominated for Best Adviser Website in the Professional Adviser Awards 2026. This was also the month of Labour’s Autumn Budget, prompting the release of our Budget video and a Short ahead of time, we were quick to react to the changes both before the Budget and once the news had landed to ensure our clients and viewers remained informed. We also hosted our first professional seminar this month, welcoming solicitors and accountants to our Chester office. We look forward to running more events like this in the future.
December:
We started December with some of our colleagues completing a programme of professional development, led by Luke – part of our commitment to helping our people grow and maintain the high standards of service that we provide. As well as a final exam pass for 2025, with Kieran passing his R04 exam. We also had our final Charity Day of the year, wrapping up the fundraising efforts for 2025. As Christmas approaches, Head of People Development and Culture, Katie, picked up the festive spirit with advent calendars all round. We also have our Christmas Party to look forward to, a chance for us to celebrate the achievements of this year at Astute together.
We’ve had a great year, filled with hard work and fun and will now be taking some time off until the new year. We’ll return in January with a brand new video, so make sure you subscribe or sign up using the link in the description box to be the first to know.
Have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, see you next time.
