Wealth management firm confirms acquisition of WFI Financial
Wealth management group Kingswood Holdings, which has an office in Manchester’s Spinningfields district, has completed the acquisition of WFI Financial in a deal worth £14m.
Sheffield-based WFI is a significant independent regional financial planning business.
The acquisition marks the continuation of Kingswood’s expansion of its national wealth management footprint to the Midlands and the North and is expected to be immediately earnings accretive to the group.
Kingswood has exchanged contracts to acquire the WFI book of business for a maximum cash consideration of £14m, which will be payable over a 30-month period; £3.5m will be payable at closing of the acquisition – which is expected to take place at the end of September 2019 – and the balance on a deferred basis subject to WFI meeting pre-agreed asset migration, recurring revenue and EBITDA hurdles over a 30 month period, with the final deferred payment due in February 2022.
In the most recent financial year to June 30, the WFI business generated EBITDA in the order of £1.8m.
WFI also has offices in Derby, Lincoln and Grimsby and manages assets of more than £550m, from in excess of 970 family clients. It has 37 partners and employees, including 16 financial planners and 19 support staff.
It has enjoyed a successful track record of profitability and growth through an expanded advisory platform, a centralised investment proposition, the acquisition of client banks from retiring IFAs and the implementation of a lean, but efficient, operating structure. On completion the group will have around 5,500 active clients and assets of approximately £2.5bn.
Gary Wilder, group chief executive at Kingswood, said: “The acquisition of WFI doubles the size of our wealth planning business and provides Kingswood with an opportunity to own a very profitable regional financial planning business with built-in expertise and capacity to expand.
“Both principals, Charlie Gillespie and Mark Rendall, are exceptional individuals with great track records in the industry and they will remain with the group post integration and assume expanded roles on the Kingswood platform.
“They, along with their excellent team, will continue to focus on their core strengths of client advice and business development, with Kingswood centrally managing regulatory and compliance, finance, HR and IT responsibilities.”
He added: “There is also a major opportunity to migrate existing and new clients across to Kingwood’s DFM platform, especially onto our recently re-launched managed portfolio service offering, underpinning the value of a fully-integrated wealth management business.”
