Elston Consulting has expanded its team to meet a rising demand for its products as the popularity of its model portfolios continues to grows.

Tony Lord has joined the firm as an adviser relations manager. He has over 30 years’ experience in the industry, helping to grow platforms from launch to maturity.

Alongside Elston Consulting head of adviser relations Scott Adams, he will focus on working with new and established adviser firms to support their investment proposition.

Henry Vijayaratnam also joins as an associate in the investment research team.

Vijayaratnam completed the Elston Summer Internship in May 2024 and will report to investment director Hoshang Daroga and head of research Henry Cobbe.

Elston Consulting said the two appointments will strengthen the group’s capabilities as it “continues to bring its model portfolios capabilities to advice firms and DFMs.”

Elston has seen increased adviser enthusiasm for the Elston Adaptive range of portfolios, designed for accumulation and Elston Retirement range of portfolios designed for decumulation.

These portfolios are managed by Elston Portfolio Management and are available across most adviser platforms.

Cobbe said: “We are delighted to welcome Tony Lord and Henry Vijayaratnam to Elston. They will be an asset to our firm. This is an exciting time for Elston as we are seeing rapidly growing interest in the investment solutions we design.

“We are thrilled to be able to expand the team to continue serving the adviser firms we work with and supporting their investment proposition.”

Lord added: “Advisers are facing many different demands on their businesses, not least the need to provide consistent investment outcomes to their clients at a competitive cost.

“I am delighted to be joining Elston tasked with supporting advisers with their investment propositions using the high-calibre solutions Elston can develop for advisers.”

Vijayaratnam said: “I am thrilled to be joining Elston as a permanent team member following a summer internship, in which I learned a huge amount from colleagues.

“I am looking forward to making my mark in the financial services space and progressing my career with Elston Consulting.”

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Oil prices on Monday jumped above last week’s high amid mounting fears of escalating conflict in the Middle East.

Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, rose as much as 2.4 per cent to hit $79.94 a barrel, as Hamas fired rockets at Israel, which launched strikes against targets in Gaza and Lebanon.

The price, which had dropped sharply since early April, gained more than 8 per cent last week, the biggest weekly gain since January 2023, driven by Iran’s missile attack against Israel.

Traders are concerned about a potential strike against energy infrastructure in the region that could hinder oil supplies, or disruption in the Strait of Hormuz.

There are signs that hedge funds, many of which had been betting on oil extending this year’s falls, are beginning to adjust their positioning. Funds trimmed their large short bets against Brent and increased their long positions in the week to October 1, in the early stages of last week’s rally, according to ICE data.

However, computer-driven funds that tried to latch on to market trends were likely to have still been betting against oil as of Thursday, according to a model portfolio run by Société Générale.

Israel on Monday marked the first anniversary of Hamas’s deadly October 7 attack. Ceremonies held in southern Israel were disrupted by the group firing rockets into the territory from Gaza. Rockets also set off sirens in Tel Aviv.

The events come amid a fresh offensive by Israeli forces in northern Gaza and follow an incursion by ground troops into Lebanon, where Israel is trading fire with Iran-proxy Hizbollah.

US President Joe Biden on Thursday said Israel had discussed striking Iran’s oil facilities in retaliation for an Iranian missile barrage fired at Israel last week. He later suggested Israel should consider other options.

“If I were in their shoes, I’d be thinking about other alternatives than striking oilfields,” Biden said on Friday.

The Islamic republic exports 1.7mn barrels of oil a day, mainly from a terminal on Kharg Island, about 25km off the country’s southern coast.

Daan Struyven, an analyst at Goldman Sachs, told clients that a six-month disruption, hitting about 1mn b/d, would push Brent up to $85 in the middle of next year if Opec offsets the shortfall. Prices could climb to the mid-$90s without an offset, he forecast.

“Investors are focused on the risk that Israel and Iran may enter a cycle of retaliatory attacks that may escalate into a broader conflict,” Struyven said.

Additional reporting by Laurence Fletcher

A HUGE mansion valued at £4.5million hides an incredible secret feature behind its front doors.

The Grade II-listed property in Lymington, Hampshire, has been dubbed every child’s “dream” home.

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The massive home boasts nine bedrooms, seven bathrooms, five reception rooms, a detached coach house and a south-facing garden.

However estate agents Spencers say the house is guaranteed to “liven up any dinner party” thanks to its most unusual asset – a slide from the first floor to the ground floor.

The stainless-steel tube allows guests to descend from the first floor in style through a glass door and is designed ‘for those with a sense of fun’.

There is also a games room, library and a cinema while all the bedrooms house a full media suite and surround sound system.

The listings reads: “A second means of descending from the first floor is via a polished stainless steel tube slide which passes through a glass floor, designed for those with a sense of fun and a great talking point to liven up any dinner party.”

A Spencers spokesperson added: “It’s one of the unique houses in Lymington.

“It’s been designed around a certain lifestyle and with a life that doesn’t take itself too seriously.

“The house itself has a huge amount of history and has been recently updated by the current owners in a particularly stylish fashion.

“Not every house that we market has an indoor slide. It’s quite fun.

“It’s the sense of fun that it brings. It’s a great family house. Good for kids. It’s really the whole package.

.”Everything has been designed around comfort and convenience. It’s designed as a house for someone to live in who wants to enjoy life.”

Spencers say the 8,000 sqft family home promises “great grandeur and history” and “imagination” and even sports a sunken ice trough “from which to serve fresh sea food or champagne”.

Many users have praised the novelty structure on social media, with one user commenting “we all dreamt of this as a kid, right?”

Another user posted: “Super cool.”

While a third user wrote: “If I won the lottery.”

A fourth person said: “I love it.”

Another unusual home went on the market last month and it would definitely (maybe) ideal for an Oasis fan.

Elsewhere, you could get your hands on the corner shop that featured in the hit comedy show Open All Hours.

If those properties are out of your price range then a terraced house in New Tredegar, Wales, has gone on the market for nothing – but you may want to take a look inside first.

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California Democrats, energised by native daughter Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, are trying to flip six congressional districts that Republicans have dominated for years, regaining control of the US House of Representatives in the process.

The “Harris effect” has given Democrats a slight polling boost in some of the races, raising hopes within the party that deep-blue California will deliver them a majority in the House. Victories in these seats would also tighten the Democrats’ grip on the state, despite criticism of the party’s leadership there on issues ranging from homelessness and business competitiveness to crime and the cost of living.

“The great irony for the Republicans is that their hopes of retaining control of the House lie in the bluest state in the country,” said Dan Schnur, professor at University of California, Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies and a former Republican strategist. “This is not Ronald Reagan’s California any more.”

The outcome of the California races — along with a handful of contests in another blue state, New York — could determine whether the winner of the presidential election will be able to push through his or her legislative agenda.

The Republicans have a narrow majority in the House of just eight seats, with three vacancies. Most forecasters expect the Republicans to regain control of the Senate in the November election, so if they are able to hold on to enough congressional seats in California they could limit the ambitions of a Harris administration, or give her rival Donald Trump considerable room to manoeuvre.

“The entire House is on the line,” said Christian Grose, a professor of political science and international relations at the University of Southern California who conducted recent polls on the races. “The six congressional districts [in California] are the ones that are probably going to decide the House.”

Among the Democratic hopefuls in California is Will Rollins, a 40-year-old former federal prosecutor who is challenging Ken Calvert, a 71-year-old Republican who has held his seat in Congress since 1993. Rollins ran against Calvert in 2022 and lost; the two men were tied at 46 per cent each in a USC poll published last month.

But Rollins said having Harris on the ballot could improve his chances this year. “It’s been uniquely helpful in my case,” he said of the vice-president’s candidacy. “She represents a new generation . . . Calvert and [former president] Trump don’t look like our generation. We want to see ourselves in government.”

California voters are much more enthusiastic about Harris’s candidacy than they were about President Joe Biden’s before his fateful debate with Trump in June, according to a USC poll last week. This could translate to a better turnout, potentially helping Democrats in the congressional races.

“Everybody knows that Harris is going to carry California,” said Bob Shrum, a veteran Democratic strategist who is director of the USC Center for the Political Future. “But a lot of people will want to make an affirmative statement about themselves by going out and voting for her. Turnout is important.”

The races are close. According to another USC poll released September 24, Democratic House candidates are leading in four of six of the races, with a tie in a fifth race. A Republican is winning in one of the contests. All are statistical dead heats.

Redistricting and demographic changes — including immigration and a shift inland from coastal areas — have reshaped longtime Republican strongholds such as Orange County and the Inland Empire, which is about 100km inland from Los Angeles, giving Democrats some reason for optimism. “Many of these districts were Republican bastions,” Berkeley’s Schnur said.

In some ways, Orange County, birthplace of former Republican president Richard Nixon and a bedrock of conservatism for decades, epitomises the shifts. The House race in Orange County pits incumbent Republican Michelle Steel, who immigrated to the US from South Korea with her mother and sisters, against Democrat Derek Tran, whose parents were Vietnamese refugees.

Both candidates have hung campaign signs along the streets and strip malls of Orange County’s Little Saigon district in hopes of reaching the Vietnamese community, which has tended to backed Republicans thanks to its tough-on-communism message.

Steel’s signs say “down with communism” in red Vietnamese script against a background closely resembling the South Vietnamese flag, which remains a potent message symbol in a community created by refugees after the fall of Saigon in 1975. Tran’s signs in English say “Veteran for Congress”, a reference to his service in the US Army.

Tran is leading by 1.5 percentage points, but Steel is a formidable fundraiser who has demonstrated she can win in the Democrat-leaning district, which voted for Biden in 2020.

“The large Vietnamese community in particular is pretty evenly split between Tran and Steel,” Grose of USC said. “Older Vietnamese have tended to vote Republican and younger Vietnamese tend to vote Democratic.”

The district Calvert and Rollins are competing for has been dramatically reshaped in recent years. For decades it was solidly Republican, but today it encompasses LGBT-friendly Palm Springs and the logistics hub of the Inland Empire, which has become one of the fastest-growing regions in the US.

An influx of people priced out of the coastal areas of Southern California who are looking for more affordable housing has fuelled much of that growth — and shifted the politics of the region.

“If you were asked about this district 20 years ago, the answer would have been it’s a safe Republican district,” Shrum said. “Now it’s a competitive district. You have lots of people moving in over the past few years who are more inclined to vote for a Democrat.”

Shrum acknowledges the races are close but believes the Democrats can gain seats in the shifting California districts.

“They’re in pretty good shape to pick up a number of seats,” he said. “Control of the House may hinge on how many they pick up.”

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