Cheshire financial advisers bought in £12m deal

Cheshire financial advisers JFP Financial Services has been bought by wealth management group Kingswood in a deal worth up to £12.4m.

JFP manages assets worth £360m from its Macclesfield office, serving around 1,300 clients who are mainly based across Cheshire, Derbyshire and Staffordshire.

The deal will see £7.44m paid immediately with an additional £5m subject to performance over the next two years.

Andy Heywood, JFP

Andrew Heywood, director of JFP, said: “Throughout the sales process there were a number of important factors that influenced our decision, but the over-riding requirement was for us to have an excellent matching of cultures with any firm looking to acquire us.”

JFP made a pre-tax profit of £1.5m on sales of £2.5m in the year to March 2022.

Kingswood is an acquisitive wealth management group with 115 advisers who, with the addition of JFP, will be responsible for funds totalling £10.9bn.

The acquisition will expand its geographical footprint into the North West, an ind particular the “affluent South Manchester area”.

David Lawrence, chief executive of Kingswood Group, said: “JFP Holdings are a high-quality business that has operated with its affiliate Josolyne & Co, a leading chartered accountancy practice, for many years.

“Our growth strategy is important and we are strongly committed to supporting more clients. We have a further four acquisitions under exclusive due diligence that we expect to close in the coming months, plus a number of additional transactions that are currently under negotiation.”