Financial Services

How Peter built his business with 4,500 clients and £1bn funds under management in 30 years

Peter Harding, Founder and Director, Peter Harding Wealth Management. Picture: Dorset Biz News.

By Staff Reporter [email protected]

Published: January 25, 2023 | Updated: 26th January 2023

By any measure, Peter Harding has led the most extraordinary life.

From mobile disco DJ and farmhand to property developer and accomplished yachtsman with no fewer than five Fastnet Races under his belt.

But, without question, the father of three’s biggest professional achievement has been founding, and successfully building, his wealth management practice.

From a desk in an upstairs bedroom to now, 30 years later, offices in four locations, a 60-strong team, including 15 advisers, 4,500 clients and just under £1 billion of funds under management.

Indeed, Peter Harding Wealth Management, a Principal Partner Practice of St. James’s Place (SJP) – one of the leading wealth management organisations in the UK – is SJP’s seventh largest business as measured by funds under management.

It’s not without a little pride that Peter says: “St James’s Place corporately look after about 900,000 clients.

“With our 4,500 clients, we literally look after half a per cent of SJP clients and roughly half a per cent of their funds under management.

“If you had said that to me when I started then I just wouldn’t have comprehended it.”

Peter was three when his parents moved from Richmond, South London, to Shaftesbury in 1969.

For seven years he lived over the family shop – Hardings – which sold sweets, tobacco, toys, records and tapes.

And, not that he was to know it at the time, it was the records that were to help him get a foothold in his later financial services career.

Peter, the eldest of five children, said: “As a teenager I used to run a mobile disco, Stripes Mobile Discotheque.

“That came about because Mum and Dad had the shop and all the singles that didn’t get sold were reduced to 75p and 50p and I would have them.

“We advertised in Tatler and Harpers & Queen and I used to do all the South West balls. One December I did 29 gigs.

“I was the quiet one, very good at mixing records but didn’t talk a lot.”

Unsure about his future career, Peter, who later worked as a weekend farmhand while studying at college, spotted a card in the Job Centre in Salisbury for sales reps.

The company turned out to be Sun Life Canada on Richmond Hill, Bournemouth.

Peter, who was 22 at the time, said: “In those days I didn’t have a suit.

“I went to the interview in a smart pair of trousers and a pullover.

“They really didn’t want to take me on because they said ‘you’re far too young and who do you know?’

“They gave me a book and told me to fill it with everyone I knew who may have had a baby, been made redundant, just retired, moved house or got promoted.

“Of course, because of my disco days, I knew loads of people and went through the book with no trouble.

“I worked for Sun Life Canada for about four and a half years. It’s where I grew up in financial services.

“Everyone said ‘Don’t to do that Pete. You’ll get a name for selling life assurance and a bad reputation’ but I enjoyed it from day one.”

At the age of 26, Peter was invited to join J Rothschild Assurance, later to become St James’s Place, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Peter Harding Practice Limited, which trades as Peter Harding Wealth Management, was founded in May 1993.

From that original bedroom it’s grown to four offices – in Shaftesbury, Sherborne, Canford Cliffs (Poole) and Corsham, Wiltshire.

Peter, 56, who also has outside property interests after building around 60 houses in the last 20 years, said: “It’s like a snowball.

“It’s one of those businesses where if you’re doing the right thing and looking after clients they stay with you.

“We’ve got a nation of spenders and a nation of savers.

“Those that spend always spend and spend their money and someone else’s.

“Those that save think long and hard about spending and save, save, save.

“We’ve got clients going back 30 years.

“I was sitting in a house in Christchurch just before Christmas and there were four generations.

“The great grandmother who was 92, her son who is 63, his daughter who was in her early 40s and her children who were two and four.

“We’ve got lots of families where we have three generations, probably not so many where there are four.

“Everyone is different.

“Every person has got different issues, different circumstances, different concerns.

“We’re not selling, we’re advising, we’re counselling, we’re helping people.

“Over the last one, three, five, ten years, all the banks have tended to be shutting their offices.

“We find that, particularly with older clients, they like to go into an office and see an adviser and they like to see the same person.

“I have a great team and a lot of our advisers have been with me a long time.

“It’s the same person year in, year out and that’s what our clients like.”

Married to Susie for 28 years and with one of his three sons, Henry, 25, working in the business, Peter said he was particularly proud that Peter Harding Wealth Management had been awarded the prestigious Chartered Financial Planners designation by the Chartered Insurance Institute (CII).

Peter is also a Fellow of the CII, regarded as the most prestigious level of professional achievement attainable within the insurance and financial services industry.

He said: “I’m very proud.

“We have a great staff, great leadership team and great clients.

“I enjoy seeing clients.

“I didn’t set out to run a small, medium, large business.

“I set out to see clients and that’s the bit I still enjoy doing the most.”

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