Bowmore Wealth Group has bought North Oxfordshire-based Independent Financial Strategies for an undisclosed amount.
The deal adds £50mn to Bowmore Financial Planning’s assets under advice and brings the total for Bowmore Group to above £400mn.
Bowmore Wealth Group is the parent company of Bowmore Financial Planning, a chartered financial planner for private clients, trustees and corporates, and Bowmore Asset Management, a discretionary fund manager.
Independent Financial Strategies focuses on HNW clients and is headed by Charles Cozens and Kate Wythe who will both stay with the business.
Mark Incledon, chief executive of Bowmore Wealth Group, said: “Although we are planning to expand through mergers and acquisitions, we’re being careful only to progress with businesses that have a very close cultural fit with our own.
“Bowmore prides itself on being a family business where the emphasis is on servicing clients – that matches very closely with Independent Financial Strategies’s approach on delivering a top-quality service for clients.”
He added: “We think that we are an attractive bidder for other firms of financial advisers as we are less debt driven than traditional consolidators.
“Higher levels of debt mean acquirers are having to squeeze more out of their acquisitions and that’s not always in the interest of clients.”
Cozens said IFS had chosen to sell to Bowmore as it had a well-formulated succession plan and a similar ethos.
“They have an inclusive ‘can do’ approach that can accommodate a broad spectrum of clients, “ he said.
“It is also worthy of note that our advisers on the deal said that he had never before seen both a buyer and seller take so much care and trouble to get to know each other’s business before completing the deal.”
Incledon said the firm was not buying businesses simply for the assets they advise on.
“We are much more interested in merging with businesses where there is some value that we can add for the client base,” he explained.
“For Independent Financial Strategies, which has historically been more focused on the investment side of its work, we feel we can offer its clients a lot through our financial planning side.”
amy.austin@ft.com
