Watch out for the client 'bite'

His favourite phrase, when referring to clients, was: “Watch out lad, cornered rats bite.” Whilst his analogy was clumsy, his experience was real, and he was of course referring to the fact that, as soon as things go wrong, your client will turn against you. When returns are good, you have no problems. There were of course no complaints about endowments in the late eighties and early nineties, there were no complaints about precipice bonds until the turn of the century, split caps were once a sound financial planning tool for school fees planning, and many IFAs would pray daily at the wit...