Our recently announced acquisition of discretionary investment management business Barker Poland fits perfectly with Walker Crips’ stated desire of the board to make a strategic acquisition to complement its existing wealth and investment management activities.
The two principal activities of the Walker Crips Group (WCG) are investment management and wealth management.
The investment management division is based in London, where we have our head office, while the wealth management division is in York, having acquired the London York Group in 2005. Other regional offices include Birmingham, Bristol, Inverness, the Lake District, Lincoln, Norwich, Romford Swansea, Truro and Wymondham.
WCG benefits from an in-house platform and systems developed over many years, which include efficient back-office departments – ie finance, operations, technology and administration – based in Romford, that provide the client service.
In 2012, the proceeds of the sale of the asset management subsidiary enabled the group to make acquisitions of businesses along with appointments of individuals to reflect the renewed strategy to diversify from its traditional reliance on transaction driven stockbroking revenue.
Building on growth
The three key strands of the company’s strategy are:
- focused acquisitions of teams of individuals or entities that complement or broaden the group’s existing services;
- expansion of the group’s product range to build on organic growth and profitability; and
- increasing the proportion of recurring fee revenues.
The implementation of WCG’s strategy is supported by its objectives, which comprise:
- growth in assets under management and administration (AUMA) to £5bn in the medium term;
- growth in the regional coverage of the investment management division;
- expansion of the wealth management arm (York), particularly in the south-east;
- provision of a client-centred service offering a flexible, impartial and compelling proposition to individual clients;
- increasing non-broking income as a proportion of overall income.
