Welcome to our #141 weekly newsletter.
“For women taking control of their financial future”
-Jana Hlistova
From The Purse
In this week’s newsletter, we spotlight our interview with Anna Sofat who rejoins us on The Purse Podcast.
We highlight Anna’s intention behind building Addidi, her financial services boutique for women and why profit and impact should, in fact go hand in hand.
Listen to the full interview here.
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And you can review the news in brief so you stay on top of global financial, economic and investing trends.
I hope you enjoy this week’s newsletter.
Until next week,
Jana
Building business for profit and impact.
Anna Sofat rejoins us on The Purse Podcast to talk about her business, finding investors and partners, ‘the exit’, women’s wealth and why women should invest.
Anna Sofat joined us again on The Purse Podcast.
Anna is known as the Voice of Women’s Wealth. She is passionate about money being a force for good in business and beyond. As an award winning and highly qualified financial planner until recently, she had advised private clients for over 20 years.
Anna founded Addidi, a financial services boutique for women. The firm was sold to Progeny Wealth in 2019.
In this podcast interview we talk about Anna’s business Addidi, how she grew the business, finding investors, ‘the exit’, building a business for profit and impact and more.
Here is a short extract from the interview:
Jana: If we think about your example… you were building a business that helped, supported, enabled women around their money to essentially lead a financially independent, a financially happy life.
So in addition to the financial success that your business had, it was having a real positive impact on women, women's lives and on women's financial independence.
Anna: Yes. And it was having a business model, having a focus and doing business in a way which put that right at the heart of the business.
So we had bigger and smaller clients, and we probably could have done better and grown more if we focused on a really tight segment and say, these are the only people we look after.
You've got to be clear.
But for us, it was very much about can we add value to somebody's life? And if we can, then perhaps they're the right type of client for Addidi.
And I think women do think about this and it's right, we should, because the future of the whole planet depends on us.
Thinking about impact rather than just profit.
Big business have helped to generate a great deal of wealth, but that wealth hasn't led necessarily to a balanced or happier world. Right?
A lot more people can feed themselves, which is fantastic. But the gap between the top 1% in the world and the bottom 50% is huge. So I think we do have to think about that.
Because the future isn't what the past has been. It has got to be different.
And I read recently, on Linkedin, about women raising millions of pounds and it is celebrated and I celebrate with them all. I think it's fantastic that so and so has raised $30m in this tough market.
There was a recent young lady raising about $34m as a sole founder: that's something to be celebrated, of course. But the whole article was about this input, about this number.
How are we going to measure the output? What is the output of the $34m investors are looking for?
And we don't look at the output, I don’t think. We don't, apart from profit in a business.
In the investment world, we're beginning to have this whole ESG approach: ie the environment, social and governance framework coming in.
But it’s still not there.
We have the whole B Corp movement around people, planet, and profit. But at the moment we don't have sufficient metrics to, for example, measure people.
So how happy are your employees? How happy and well are your clients and consumers that you are selling to?
I remember going to see a big bank in the city in the early days of Addidi and we were networking with women's networks. And this young lady came in; we were pitching for sponsorship and she was a key part of that sponsorship.
And she came in, she was late and she apologised and I said, ‘oh, what were you up to? Why were you late?’
She had another meeting. And it was all about the fact that they were setting up a business in East Europe somewhere, one of the ex-Soviet areas. And they were setting up a lending business that basically would lend to high risk clients.
And I asked: is there a demand for this sort of lending in the country? Who wants to borrow money at amazing percentages, unsecured?
And she wrote down on a piece of paper this matrix: in the UK they can lend maybe at 15% or 20%, but over there, they could do at 40% ….
So there was potential there. But there was no assessment in that business model about the need they were meeting. Or the output or the morals of how much to charge. It was all about the margins and the bottom line.
And that is no longer fit for purpose, in my view.
Listen here to the full interview
News in Brief
Financial news
Nasdaq ends down as investors eye Black Friday sales and Covid-19 cases in China.
On Wednesday night, minutes from the Federal Reserve meeting pointed to support for a slower pace of rate rises, which sent Wall Street higher.
FTSE flat as Ofgem increases energy price cap and pound strengthens. The energy price cap will rise from £3,549 to £4,279 starting in January.
The Bank of England (BoE) is also expected to raise its own interest rates by another 50 basis points in December, from 3% to 3.5%.
Jeremy Hunt’s plans likely to degrade public services, says report. Thinktank says it expects chancellor’s autumn statement to leave ‘poisoned inheritance’ for next government.
Demand for rental homes in UK up by 23% in a year, as rents hit record high.
Competition among tenants for properties intensified by potential buyers delaying plans and lower supply of smaller homes.
Crypto: bitcoin, ethereum, DeFi & NFTs
Bitcoin worth $1.5B withdrawn from Coinbase in 48 hours. 50,000 bitcoin were withdrawn from Coinbase on Nov. 24 and 25, marking the third-largest withdrawal from the exchange (See the current bitcoin price).
Coinbase's debt was 'canary in coal mine' for crypto meltdown. In January, price for 2031 paper was at $0.92. It then slid to $0.77 in April before dropping to $0.63 amid Terra Luna crash in May. Now trading at $0.53, a level associated with distressed.
Coinbase shares hit an all-time low amid rising investor skittishness over how far the fallout from rival exchange FTX’s insolvency might spread. Stock now down 90% from ATH.
Grayscale refuses to share proof of reserves due to 'security concerns' as shares of $10.5bn Bitcoin fund trade at a 45% discount to bitcoin GBTC’s share price has plunged 77% in 2022, compared with bitcoin’s 65% fall.
FTX was run as ‘personal fiefdom’ of Sam Bankman-Fried, court hears. Hearing in Delaware bankruptcy court is the first since the cryptocurrency exchange declared bankruptcy earlier this month.
FTX Collapse tarnishes Sequoia’s reputation, prompts apology: top partners at the powerful VC firm apologised to their investors in a conference call Tuesday for backing FTX with investments totalling $214m across 2 funds.
Cathie Wood has been scooping up shares of crypto exchange Coinbase in wake of FTX's collapse. Recent shopping spree has boosted Ark’s holdings to 4.7% of Coinbase’s outstanding shares. Ark also bought Grayscale Bitcoin Trust.
The Purse Podcast
We cover the following in our conversation:
How Anna started her business, Addidi
How Anna grew the business
Taking outside investment and finding the right investors
Media's obsession with unicorns
Building a business and investing for social impact (nor just financial returns)
The exit: how to sell your business
Women's wealth
Why we need more women investing and more women investing in the startup ecosystem.
Please enjoy! Listen on Apple Podcasts and Spotify+
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We’d love to hear from you. Get in touch with Jana via the The Purse website or tweet @jointhepurse and janicka.
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