IFAs target firms' financial service arms
The financial services arms of accountancy firms have become targets for takeover by large independent financial advisers.
The news emerged as Thomson’s Group, one of the largest IFAs in the country, revealed it was in talks with several accountancy businesses and on the verge of closing a deal with one firm.
Thomson’s, which was in November acquired by Germany’s largest IFA AWD, is expected to close the deal within a month.
Eric Staples, Thomson’s MD, said: ‘We are in a number of talks about acquiring the financial services arms of various accountancy firms. The first one will happen within the next six weeks.’ He added the acquisition could not have happened without the financial support of AWD which has annual revenues of around £165m.
Though takeovers such as this are not rare it appears the regulatory regime brought in by the Financial Services Act since 1 December has given added incentive to accountancy firms to offload financial services arms.Thomson’s turns over £19.5m and expects to target firms with turnovers from a few hundred thousand pounds to £2m.