UK financial planner boosts coffers for acquisition spree

Funding will give firm enough capital to complete deals for the next seven years

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Fairstone has secured additional acquisition finance from European asset manager Alcentra.

Alcentra has over $41bn (£32bn, €37bn) of assets under management and is part of BNY Mellon Investment Management.

The capital raising will be made through Alcentra’s third generation European funds.

Fairstone told International Adviser that the funding figure will not be disclosed, but it will underpin acquisitions that the firm makes for the “next seven years”.

The money available to Fairstone is in addition to the financial support that the company has received from its private equity investor Synova Capital.

As part of this process, Lloyds Banking Group has also provided further acquisition funding to the company.

Strong capital base

Fairstone said in a strategic update: “The outcome of this major financing project is that Fairstone now has even greater capability to scale up their overall acquisition programme with the benefit of an exceptionally strong capital base.

“Moving forward, Fairstone expect to make a number of additional acquisitions of fully integrated firms within the first half of this year.”

Previous activity

Through its downstream buy-out process, Fairstone bought six businesses over the last six months.

This includes the purchase of Hamlyn Financial Services in Norfolk and Hertfordshire-based Wagstaffs Wealth Management in January.

Collectively, the acquisitions made over the last few months account for combined gross fee income of around £6m ($7.3m, €6.6m), funds under management of £613m, as well as 35 advisers and 33 support staff.

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