DFM and financial planner form £350m UK wealth group

Newly created firm is ‘poised’ for acquisitions, as well as senior hires

Financial planning firm the Citimark Partnership and discretionary fund manager (DFM) Bowmore Asset Management have joined forces to form the London- and Bristol-based Bowmore Wealth Group.

As part of the merger, the Citimark Partnership, which has over 450 high net worth clients, will be re-branded as Bowmore Financial Planning.

The group will have over 25 staff working across financial planning and asset management with over £350m ($438m, €390m) of assets under advice.

The average client portfolio managed by Bowmore Asset Management is £1m in size.

Each portfolio has between 25-30 funds, which give access to approximately 1,700 individual holdings.

Mark Incledon, who founded the Citimark Partnership over 30 years ago, will be chief executive; while Christian Yates, formerly of Lazard Asset Management, Chase Asset Management and Julius Baer, will be chairman.

Citimark’s co-director Gill Millen has been appointed managing director of Bowmore Financial Planning.

Reasons

Incledon said: “Over the decades, we’ve never been entirely satisfied with outsourcing investment management. Primarily due to inconsistencies in investment performance and service.

“Hence, we’ve established our own fully authorised discretionary fund manager. This provides our clients with a more dedicated service which is 100% aligned with their objectives.

“For me, there were several issues I wanted to resolve, primarily associated with inconsistent performance and inaccurate representation of a clients attituded towards risk.

“The final nail in the coffin came after a comprehensive review of an asset manager’s long-term performance.

“Our findings showed the figures to be vastly different between regional offices. An asset manager must provide consistency and predictability, something that we now have developed a solution for.”