HDA announces a recent case study on HDA, by Birchwood Investments Management Ltd

HDA is a world-class organisation in every sense. Since the company was founded in the UK in 1979, it has established itself internationally, in more than 20 countries, providing talent management, career management and outplacement solutions to names recognised in households around the globe, including Universal Music, Henkel, ITN, Kingston University and DHL (www.hda.co.uk/corporate/our-clients/index.asp).

Building long-term relationships with its clients is a priority for HDA. That also applies to organisations to which it may refer the people it supports and counsels through redundancy, redeployment and early retirement.

So choosing trusted partners is of crucial important to HDA co-founder and chief executive officer Tricia Dicks. Since 2002, following an initial approach to Tricia by Trevor Simms, one of those partners has been Birchwood.

HDA uses Birchwood to provide one-to-one financial advice to people in managerial positions, who may be still at a relatively early stage of their career, in the middle stages or heading towards retirement. Tricia says: ìSome will be very sophisticated and have a lot of money at their disposal, others will need basic debt and financial guidance. What is surprising is how many of even the most senior people have been so busy working that they havenít spent any time on their own affairs.î

ìItís not just about investments, though. Trevor and Birchwood will put in the time to understand a companyís pension scheme, which can be very complex if it has gone through several different incarnations and ownerships.î

As part of the HDA ethos of long-term relationships, Tricia and her team need to feel complete confidence in the financial advisers they use, which is why she is happy to work with Birchwood. She explains: ìWhat we aim to do in referring people is to select organisations to match their needs. One of the things we emphasis is that financial advice is not a one-off – we hope they have an ongoing relationship.î

With every aspect of Birchwoodís service – including close co-operation between the two firmsí admin teams and the speed of Birchwoodís response – Tricia is more than happy with the collaboration. The hallmark of the relationship is, she says: ìIf you ask for something, you know it will be delivered.î

She adds: ìHDA monitor the quality of their own work and that of our suppliers and we have always been very happy with Birchwood. Their work is consistently of a high standard.î