According to a report in The Sunday Times the wealth and accountancy group is now on the market, as its owner is seeking external help to sell the business.

The sale by Permira, which owns about 56% of the business, could even take the form of a break-up, with Evelyn’s accountancy business separated out from the firm, it added.

Permira acquired a stake in what eventually became Evelyn Partners in 2014 by purchasing the online investment platform Bestinvest and merging it with competitor Tilney.

Warburg Pincus joined as an investor in 2020, supplying capital for the merger between Tilney and the accountancy firm Smith & Williamson. In 2022, the firm merged its Tilney and Smith & Williamson brands into one, and was renamed as Evelyn Partners.

Evelyn Partners saw assets under management and administration grow to a record high of £61.8bn in the first quarter of the year.

In a trading update on 14 May, the company said this represented an increase of 4.6% on the previous quarter, when AUMA sat at £59.1bn, and an increase of 13.6% on Q1 2023.

The rise was attributed to a number of other positive developments, such as an increase in gross inflows.

Gross inflows for the first quarter of the year totalled £1.8bn, an increase of 5.9% on the final quarter of 2023.

This stemmed from needing approval under the National Security and Investment Act which was now likely to be satisfied in August.

It means that the court sanctioned scheme of arrangement, under which the deal is being implemented, will now likely become effective in September, and not August as originally thought.

The statement said: “Mattioli Woods is currently working with Bidco to seek to satisfy the NS&I Act condition approval for the transaction.

“In the announcement by Mattioli Woods on 1 July 2024, it was announced that the Scheme was expected to become Effective in August 2024, subject to the satisfaction or waiver of the remaining Conditions. As the NS&I Act condition is expected to be satisfied in August 2024, the Scheme is now expected to become Effective in September 2024, subject to satisfaction or waiver of the remaining Conditions.”

The Financial Conduct Authority has already approved the deal.

Mattioli Woods, which has £15bn of assets under management, agreed to be taken private by private equity firm Pollen Street in a deal in March.

The three firms are HCF Partnership and Essex Financial Management Ltd, based in Radlett, Hertfordshire, Grosvenor Consultancy and Prosperity IFA.

Based in Radlett, Hertfordshire, HCF Partnership and Essex Financial Management have been in business since 1982. HCF provides a range of services to help clients navigate their financial life, from owning a property, through to managing their wealth and health.

“HCF’s goal is to provide its services to as many clients are possible with the financial and operational support of Söderberg & Partners”, the statement said.

Grosvenor Consultancy, a regional IFA based in Bristol and Swindon, has around £650m of client assets under management, with 16 advisers and 19 support staff. Grosvenor Consultancy “prides itself on strong retention of both clients and advisers”, the statement said.

Prosperity IFA, a Crowborough-based firm founded in 2012 by Simon Munday, manages around £130m of client money.

“An associate member of the Personal Finance Society, the firm takes pride in the great service it delivers to clients in the South East. Prosperity IFA builds lasting relationships with its clients to help them achieve their financial goals”, the statement said.

Gustaf Rentzhog, chief executive officer at Söderberg & Partners, commented: “Our strategy as we launched into the UK market has always been to invest in the best advice businesses we can find and help them move to the next level. With the resources and technology of a larger firm behind them, we are seeing the IFAs in which we invest develop their client offering and expand their regional businesses. We are delighted to be able to announce Söderberg & Partners has taken stakes in three more advice businesses, and we look forward to helping them scale up and improve efficiencies in future.”

Kevin Simmons, managing director of HCF Partnership Ltd and Essex Financial Management Ltd, said: “We are very excited to have found a company in Söderberg & Partners that shares our values and wants to support our growth as well as enhancing our capabilities.”

Ben Olson, managing director of Grosvenor Consultancy, said: “We have been very impressed with all the staff members we have met from Söderberg & Partners. We are excited about starting our journey to improve our service to clients and streamline our processes. We are very confident that Söderberg & Partners will deliver on their technology development.”

Simon Munday, founder and managing director of Prosperity IFA, added: “We have been so impressed with Söderberg & Partners since they first made contact with us in 2023. Unlike consolidators, they were keen to partner with us and help us grow, all the while building efficiencies into our processes and helping us drive down costs to clients.

“We are thrilled to have Söderberg as a partner and look forward to working with them and continuing to improve our client proposition and journey. We will be at the forefront of financial planning moving forwards adopting new technology and services and integrating them into our processes to enable us to deliver to more clients as we grow across the region.”

In April, Söderberg & Partners announced it had made investments in four IFA firms: Courtney Havers; Bespoke-Advice Ltd; Clear Financial Advice; and Bigmore Associates.

Earlier this year the group revealed plans to buy a significant minority stake in Bath-based advisory firm Fidelius for an undisclosed sum, as well as investing in London wealth manager Vintage and Croydon-based PK Financial.

Last year the firm took minority stakes in Timothy James & Partners; Dartington Wealth Management; Generation Financial Services and Atherton York. These marked Söderberg’s first major investments in the UK as part of its strategy to invest in advice firms and support their growth.

The acquisition adds a highly complementary data business to BlackRock’s investment technology, marking a strategic expansion into the fast-growing private markets data segment, the global asset manager said in a statement.

Private markets data is estimated to be an $8 billion total addressable market and growing 12% per year, reaching $18 billion by 2030, it said.

With a 20-year history, Preqin is an independent data solutions provider in private markets with global coverage of 190,000 funds, 60,000 fund managers and 30,000 private markets investors, reaching more than 200,000 users, including asset managers, insurers, pensions, wealth managers, banks, and other service providers.

In 2024, Preqin is expected to generate ~$240m of highly recurring revenue and has grown approximately 20% per year in the last three years.

Through the Aladdin platform, BlackRock provides technology solutions to over 1,000 clients. The combination of Preqin with eFront, Aladdin’s private markets solution, brings together the data, research, and investment process for fund managers and investors across fundraising, deal sourcing, portfolio management, accounting, and performance.

Preqin will also continue to be offered as a standalone solution.

“BlackRock’s vision has always been to bring together investments, technology, and data to offer solutions that meet our clients’ needs across their whole portfolio. As clients increasingly evolve their focus from choosing products to constructing portfolios, this shift requires technology, data, and analytics that create a ‘common language’ for investing across both public and private markets. We see data powering the industry across technology, capital formation, investing, and risk management,” said Rob Goldstein, BlackRock chief operating officer. “Every acquisition has been an opportunity to strengthen our capabilities for clients—and in fact, we have been a client of Preqin for many years, and we look forward to welcoming the talented Preqin team to BlackRock.”

“Together with Preqin, we can make private markets investing easier and more accessible while building a better-connected platform for investors and fund managers. This presents a substantial opportunity for Aladdin to bridge the transparency gap between public and private markets through data and analytics,” said Sudhir Nair, global head of Aladdin.

“BlackRock is known for excellence in both investment management and financial technology, and together we can accelerate our efforts to deliver better private markets data and analytics to all of our clients at scale.” said Mark O’Hare, Founder of Preqin. “I look forward to joining BlackRock and continuing to play a role in the continued growth and success of Preqin and our customers.” Preqin founder Mark O’Hare will join BlackRock as a Vice Chair after the close of the transaction.

“Private markets continue to evolve and so is Preqin. I am incredibly excited about the opportunities this next phase of growth, together with BlackRock, promises our customers and our employees,” said Christoph Knaack, CEO of Preqin.

Under the terms of the transaction, BlackRock will acquire 100% of the business and assets of Preqin for total consideration of £2.55 billion or approximately $3.2 billion in cash.

The transaction is expected to close before year-end 2024, subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions.

Barclays served as lead financial advisor to BlackRock, with Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom acting as legal counsel. Goldman Sachs International served as the sole financial advisor, and Macfarlanes acted as legal counsel, to Preqin.

In a statement on 4 July, Utmost said the acquisition “brings together two large-scale insurance-based wealth solutions businesses, strengthening Utmost’s position in key European markets and providing a strong platform to serve its clients’ long-term financial needs”.

The two businesses had “closely aligned operating models and a shared commitment to serving our clients’ long-term financial needs. By combining the existing distribution partner relationships, deep local market knowledge and a complementary product suite, the Acquisition provides a strong platform for the Group to serve its clients and execute on its strategic ambitions”.

The deal adds £43bn of assets under administration and over 20,000 policies to Utmost International. On a combined basis at YE 2023, Utmost International would have had £100bn of assets under administration and over 210,000 policies, and would have written £6.4bn of new business.

Lombard International will continue to operate from Luxembourg with its existing suite of products. These will be distributed under the Utmost brand by a single combined global salesforce in parallel with Utmost’s existing products, maintaining the combined group’s existing distribution models.

The increased scale achieved through the acquisition will enable the Group to identify opportunities for efficiencies and capital synergies, focusing on leveraging the complementary capabilities of the combined entity to deliver value creation for stakeholders.
– Maintains balance sheet strength, resilience, and flexibility:

On a proforma basis, had the transaction completed on 31 December 2023, the group would have had: An increase in Gross Solvency II EV from £2,386 to £3,150m; A group Solvency Capital Requirement (SCR) Coverage Ratio of 173%, and; A group leverage ratio of 29%, within its 20-30% target range.

The total consideration will be financed through a £200m bank loan, with the remainder covered by existing cash reserves.

Subject to regulatory approvals, the acquisition is expected to complete by the end of 2024.

Paul Thompson (pictured), CEO of Utmost Group said: “The acquisition of Lombard International marks an exciting milestone in Utmost’s journey, fortifying our European position and establishing us as a leading global provider of insurance-based wealth solutions. The combined strength of the merged Utmost International and Lombard International gives added scale to the Group. It will enable us to better serve our expanded international client base and distribution partners, utilising deep market insights, strong technical expertise and a broader portfolio of products.

“The addition of Lombard International is highly complementary to Utmost’s previous transaction – the acquisition of Quilter International completed in November 2021 – which strengthened our presence in the UK and Asia. Lombard International’s  established, long-standing networks in Europe will enhance Utmost’s global credentials and enable us to better serve our clients and partners, delivering long-term value for our people and shareholders.

“I look forward to welcoming Lombard International’s people, clients and partners to Utmost and to working closely with the Lombard International leadership on completing this transaction.”