According to SJP, Rowan Dartington’s discretionary offering which includes advisory portfolio management, direct equity trust and charity portfolio management, “will broaden the range of investment options we can offer to existing clients and enable us to access new clients who value such services.”
St. James’s Place said it has been considering the provision of DFM services for some time and it said Rowan Dartington “provides an excellent platform from which to build this additional service for our clients.
In turn, Rowan Dartington gets a FTSE 100 listed parent with a sizeable balance sheet and becomes the DFM of choice of the country’s leading wealth manager, Rowan Dartington’s executive chairman, Graham Coxell explained.
Describing it as the “best possible next chapter” in the firm’s development, Coxell added: “This opportunity will not only provide a strong platform for St. James’s Place to provide discretionary fund management services to high net worth clients. It will also enable Rowan Dartington to continue to develop and support the propositions and services to our existing and new private clients, as well as the broader UK financial adviser market.”
Under the terms of the agreement, the Rowan Dartington brand is retained and Coxell said, it will sit alongside but wholly separate from the SJP investment process.
“We will remain whole of market, it is very important that the Chinese walls remain in place,” he said.
Coxell said SJP’s international business will make use of Rowan Dartington’s Ardan platform.
SJP will acquire 100% of Rowan Dartington, for an initial consideration of £19m ($29.7m, €26.8m), with a further maximum potential future consideration of £15.2m.
The deal will be financed through the firm’s new £250m revolving credit facility, of which SJP has initially drawn down £125m in order to refinance existing bank facilities and to finance the acquisition.
