It has now made a total of 107 acquisitions. The latest five transactions add approximately £375m assets under advice, 1,100 households as clients and three new offices in Derbyshire, Lincolnshire and Cheshire.

The five acquisitions are: Hallidays Wealth Management in Stockport, Foinaven Asset Management in Ashbourne, Tony Fenton & Sons in Caistor, PW Financial Management in Cheadle and the client book of a longstanding adviser based in Perspective (Home Counties) Ltd.

Karl Fenton, Financial Planner from Tony Fenton & Sons, which now forms the Group’s Lincoln hub office and is renamed as Perspective (Fenton & Danes) said: “We had discussed options for the next phase of our company for some time with Tony approaching his retirement, but with myself, Ben and Jonathan still looking to continue our careers as advisers.

“Perspective was the first company of many that we met with while looking into a sale, and from day one it always seemed like the right fit, not least because of the shared values when it comes to treatment of clients and processes. The journey to completion was tough, as you would expect, but made so much easier by the dedicated and supportive staff throughout the company, who are a pleasure to deal with.”

Financial Planner, Simon Roberts from Foinaven, which becomes Perspective (Foinaven) in Ashbourne said: “After many years of providing a high level of service to our clients, I wanted this to continue indefinitely in a more protected environment for all concerned. After careful consideration I was very pleasantly surprised to meet Perspective, who operate in the same way as we do, and I look forward to continuing the journey to serve our clients with the professionalism they deserve.”

Ian Wilkinson, chief executive officer of Perspective said: “We are delighted to have finished 2024 so strongly, and that these high quality, client-centric firms have chosen to become part of Perspective. We welcome a number of new colleagues to our expanding group, including three new offices to further develop our national footprint.

“We look forward to seeing what 2025 brings for Perspective, and hope that we can continue to capitalise on our strong M&A momentum and pipeline. We are meeting both large and small firms and plan to continue growing at pace with our highly selective acquisition strategy.”

In a statement today (2 September) the consolidator said the deals have upped the office count to 39 with 530 households coming on board as clients.

Founded in 2003 Whittington Goddard, based near Sheffield, will be known as Perspective (Whittington Goddard).

Whittington Goddard co-founder Richard Whittington said: “We decided to join Perspective following a number of meetings with members of the Board and senior management team.

“It was obvious that they shared our commitment to providing focussed face to face advice and this gave us confidence that our clients will be well served long into the future.”

Perspective has also acquired Egham-based Copthorne Financial Services whose clients will largely be served by Perspective’s Chesham office.

Copthorne Financial Services director Nick Blackford said: “I have been reviewing my ‘LifePlan’ over the last few years and wanted to make sure that my staff and clients would be looked after when I decided to retire from the financial services profession,

“It was important to me to find an acquirer who had the same professionalism, continuous service to clients, same culture, ethos and ethics as myself.”

Perspective CEO Ian Wilkinson said: “Both businesses ticked the boxes for us in terms of client-centricity, and our flexible deal structures has allowed both Richard and Nick to sell to us on terms that suit them.

“We look forward to a busy final quarter of 2024 and hope to continue to announce further high quality acquisitions in the coming months.”

This is the firm’s 20th acquisition of the year and will bring 340 clients and £205m of assets under management (AuM).

Ian Wilkinson, chief executive of Perspective, said: “We feel very positive about the scale and pace of progress we have made in 2023 towards our goal of creating the best client-centric financial planning firm for both our clients and our people. Successfully completing and integrating an acquisition every two to three weeks is testament to the professionalism of our whole team.

“Our sustained growth is enabling us to become a better, not just bigger, firm which is very important to us. We remain highly selective in the firms we acquire – they must be genuinely client-centric, not just claim to be.

“In our experience, it’s easy to say those words, but another thing entirely to apply them in practice. The average length of our client relationships is 25 years and often span four generations in a family, which are impressive benchmarks that say a lot about the level of expertise and service we consistently deliver to clients.”

To read more on this topic, visit: Wealth manager takes acquisition total for the year to 19 with latest deal

Neil Donnelly and Mark Copsey, directors of Primera Wealth Management Ltd, added: “Over recent years our attention has naturally been drawn towards the future of our business and the continuation of our advice to clients well into the future. After an exhaustive search, one business in particular, Perspective, stood out. We are therefore delighted to join them, as their ethos, ethics and client-focused approach fully align with our own values.”

This news comes after Perspective purchased Worthing-based Accord Financial Management Ltd and Rotherham-based RPG Financial Ltd last month.

The term ‘shoehorning’ will ring bells with followers of regulation, who will recall the FCA’s keen focus on it in the Retail Distribution Review (RDR) of 2012.

Back then, the concern was that as advice and investment firms developed centralised investment propositions (CIPs), there would be issues around client suitability and poor outcomes.

There were concerns that firms could ‘churn’ clients, moving them from their existing investments into CIPs, and that additional costs could be incurred by clients being put into these new investments.

Now, with barely a month going by without at least one wealth manager or advice firm being snapped up by an aggregator or consolidator, there’s a real likelihood that the regulator could turn its spotlight onto these expanding firms.

Renewed focus

Under Consumer Duty rules, shoehorning will now be viewed with even more disdain than in the past by a regulator looking to make sure it’s on the front foot.

Back in February, St James’s Place – probably the largest vertically integrated advice firm in the UK – stated that ahead of Consumer Duty coming into force, there would be “aspects of the way we operate which will need to change in order to meet regulatory expectations”.

The firm added that the FCA was “expecting action, and where we identify this is required, we will respond to improve [the] client experience and reduce any risk of poor client outcomes”.

In recent days, SJP has announced a fundamental overhaul of pricing, and is now looking to increase the role of passives in its proposition.

Even the biggest firms will need to ensure that they can demonstrate that they have not shoehorned any clients.

Evidencing this is the case becomes much more difficult in a vertically integrated organisation growing rapidly via M&A.

Acquisition frenzy

Recent data from research firm NextWealth found that acquisitions of advice firms almost doubled in 2022.

Last year saw 101 deals, nearly twice the 54 inked in 2021. Interestingly, the deals in 2022 accounted for £48bn in assets under management (AUM), up by 85% from the £26bn the prior year.

Perspective Financial Group and Fairstone Group made the most acquisitions, with 20 and 13 purchases, respectively, followed by Kingswood (9), Atomos (formerly Sanlam) (8), and Progeny (7).

With this kind of growth within some firms, it will be vital that these businesses ensure clients are not shoehorned into products amid the frenzy of expansion.

And where owners or majority shareholders are private equity firms, businesses need to ensure that their owners’ laser-like focus on profit doesn’t detract from client suitability efforts.

Strategic decisions

Among the many factors and processes that may need to be addressed to help reduce the risk of shoehorning, wealth managers may want to consider cost.

Outsourcing a centralized investment proposition benefits from economies of scale, particularly when the ‘agent as client’ approach, which is covered in the FCA Handbook (COBS), is used.

Such an approach means that a firm doesn’t have to fund expensive back-office functions, like custody and trading desks. At the same time it facilitates a genuine whole-of-market approach.

The more competitive a firm’s overall fees are, the less chance it can be viewed as not offering its clients value for money.

This doesn’t mean there has to be a race to the bottom – the prevailing rhetoric is keen to emphasise value over price – but ensuring that its proposition is keenly priced could act as a robust part of a firm’s defences when it comes to demonstrating its approach.

Attractive pricing and operational independence aren’t necessarily a panacea, though; the regulator will be looking for comprehensive evidence that shoehorning isn’t occurring, not some quick fixes that only pay lip service .

This article was written for International Adviser by David Ogden, head of compliance at Sparrows Capital.

Taking the number of acquisitions made by the firm this month to four and 19 this year to date.

The Group has now made 75 acquisitions since its inception 16 years ago with 37 offices across the UK with 125 financial planners and a total of 460 staff.

As well as now having £7bn ($8.5bn, €8bn) of assets under management (AuM) for clients.

To read more on this topic, visit: UK wealth manager makes double acquisition

Perspective has also exchanged contracts on a further seven deals which it says will complete in the coming months.

Paul Roper and Jason Bant directors of Accord, said: “We launched our business in 1999 and since then have experienced tremendous growth due to numerous recommendations from existing clients and professional connections, for which we are immensely grateful.

“To sustain and grow the business further, we knew we needed the support of a larger partner including access to the next generation of financial planners, and also assistance with the ever increasing regulatory burden.

“We are delighted to become part of Perspective as they clearly share our ethos, ethics and client-focused approach. This move will provide long term security to the provision of financial advice to our clients and career security our staff.”

Stephen Dilks, Richard Garner and Richard Pink directors of RPG Financial, added: “ After an exhaustive search, Perspective really stood out. From the outset, it was clear they are a genuinely client-centric firm with great professionalism across all aspects of their operation.

“A key aspect that we required in a larger partner was the reassurance for clients and staff that nothing would change significantly on a day-to-day basis.”

Ian Wilkinson chief executive of Perspective, commented: “2023 has been a year of strong and significant progress for us as we continue to deliver our highly selective acquisition strategy, completing a record number of acquisitions.

“We are over a third bigger than we were a year ago. It’s pleasing that the firms we acquire consistently comment on our professionalism and ‘can do’ attitude.”