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Article taken from:

Quarterly Bulletin
Autumn Edition
October 2009

Principal in the community

Heartwarming news from Peckham

Regular readers may recall that our staff have worked with the Leaders of Tomorrow in Peckham since 2007. We were delighted to hear from Vallin Miller, the programme leader, who told us: “We have been working with Monsuru Alasi and Micheal Williams since they were 14. Monsuru has won one of 30 places to Brazil under the Prime Minister’s Global Fellowship programme... for a 6 week work
placement with international firms. Micheal Williams has been offered an internship with the Royal Bank of Canada, working with Traders and Stockbrokers in the City, during the Summer. Micheal first got interested in finance and investing following a series of free Financial Literacy seminars put on by Principal for LOT students. He was inspired and took an interest in wanting to work in the City.”

It’s a refreshing change to hear positive stories about the young people in that tough part of London, and rewarding to think we have played some small part in it.

Client satisfaction survey

We are very grateful to all those who took part in a satisfaction survey earlier this year. Overall the results expressed were very encouraging.

Our clients rated our staff very highly on a number of key factors, including: knowledgeable and professional staff; approachable portfolio managers; responsive and easy to contact; keeping errors to a minimum.

As you might expect, given the timing of the survey, a number of clients expressed some concerns about the impact of markets on their portfolios. As a result we are looking at ways to keep clients better informed in the future. We are very proud of Principal’s service ethos and are keen to improve your ratings of our performance still further.

St Paul's: a national icon

As our London office is a close neighbour to St Paul’s, we have become a corporate partner of the Cathedral Foundation. This contribution to the building’s future means we can sometimes obtain special access for clients to Cathedral events. If you would like to be kept informed of any such opportunities, please contact your Investment Manager.

Footloose and fancy free?

In the last Bulletin, we announced Principal’s sponsorship of a couple of student places in the Summer workshop of the youth production of ‘Footloose the Musical’ at The Stag Theatre in Sevenoaks. We are pleased to report that our support has paid dividends. As Jill McGrogan, the producer, commented: “It was a huge critical and box office success and due to sponsorship obtained from yourselves we were able to offer scholarships to the most talented students who would otherwise have been unable to afford to attend.”