OREANDA-NEWS. Lighthouse Group plc (AIM:LGT), the national financial adviser of choice for Middle Britain, is pleased to announce that it has agreed a new contract with The General Federation of Trade Unions ("GFTU"), to be the preferred provider of expert financial advice to its affiliate members.   

The contract will run for two years from 16 November 2015 and under the terms Lighthouse will be the preferred provider of financial advice to GFTU affiliate members, encompassing advice on savings, investments, pensions and protection, plus mortgages.

GTFU is the federation for specialist trade unions and sections of larger, general unions. It has 23 affiliates with approximately 215,000 members and provides a range of support and services, which include education, research and project management.

This new contract further extends a growing list of affinity partnerships, which includes major employee organisations such as UNISON, usdaw, Unite, BA Clubs, Prospect, Parliament Hill and the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), highlighting Lighthouse's capacity to deliver financial planning solutions to a diverse and substantial audience.   

Doug Nicholls, General Secretary of GFTU commented: "We are delighted to have secured this contract with Lighthouse, which will enable us to facilitate financial planning assistance for our affiliate members on a truly national basis and ensure that they are able to receive financial planning assistance in a reliable and consistent manner, no matter what their need".

Malcolm Streatfield, Chief Executive Officer of Lighthouse commented: "The Board is delighted that we have secured this partnership with GFTU, which is another new and exciting opportunity for us. We look forward to developing our relationship over the coming years and working closely with GFTU affiliate members to assist them with their financial planning requirements. The Board remains committed to increasing our affinity partnerships throughout the UK". 

As one of the UK's largest autonomous financial advice and wealth management Groups and winner of FT Business's Large IFA of the Year Award for three years in succession 2010-2012, Lighthouse provides a comprehensive range of services to businesses and individuals and is retained by most of the major trades unions and other affinity groups to advise their combined memberships of over 5 million members.

Lighthouse has been listed on AIM since 2000 and presents an integrated financial services company for investors, coupled with significant scale in terms of distribution through financial advisers and wealth managers and its fully diversified business model.

The Group aims to increase its relationships with and the benefits it derives from its relationships with affinity groups and professional partners.

In April 2014 Lighthouse announced the launch of its Lighthouse Pensions Trust ("LPT"), an unbundled multi-employer Master Trust product that provides a cost-effective and one-stop shop service to enable small- and medium- sized enterprises ("SMEs"), under the Group's Lighthouse Workplace Solutions ("LWS") branded service.  Some 1.8 million SMEs are required to establish auto-enrolment compliant pension schemes for their employees between July 2015 and March 2018.  LPT utilises target date funds managed by Alliance Bernstein, which manages $486 Billion of funds world-wide and is 63 per cent. owned by AXA, with a subsidiary of Eversheds acting as the corporate trustee.

In June 2014 the Group announced an extension of its LWS offering with the launch of the Lighthouse Life Trust, again an unbundled multi-employer occupational Master Trust product that enables those businesses that have agreed to adopt LPT to meet their auto-enrolment obligations to provide death-in-service life assurance cover for all of their employees aged between 16 and 65, for the same cost per benefit, at very competitive rates, regardless of age, gender, location or pre-existing medical conditions.  The scheme is underwritten by Zurich Assurance Limited with Bridge Trustees as corporate trustee.

Lighthouse operates from its headquarters in London as well as having principal operating offices in Stockport and Woodingdean, near Brighton.