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As Reggie Perrin's boss CJ might have put it, Christopher Clarke, chairman of wealth manager Rensburg Sheppards, didn't get where he is today by beating around the bush looking for two birds in the hand.
So shareholders should not be too surprised when he kicks off his annual address to them today with a great “mea culpa”.
“I feel shareholders deserve an explanation for my contention at the end of last year's statement that financial markets appeared to have stabilised somewhat,” states Clarke.
Well he might. For back then the FTSE 100 stood above 5800 rather than today's 4460. As Clarke, who used to run Henderson and Witan fund managers, explains, Lehman Brothers had yet to go bust, oil had yet to hit $140 a barrel and the collapse in financial and economic confidence had barely begun.
“If I have learned one thing in 40 years in investment management,” Clarke writes, “it is that those who make predictions can look quite foolish quite quickly.”
In fact Rensburg's small drop in pre-tax profits from £31.2 million to £30.5 million was better than analysts' forecasts and the dividend is unchanged at 25.5p a share.
As for the future, Clarke tempers his comments: “There have recently been signs that the period of freefall has drawn to an end.” He's not alone in that.
