Financial planning firm Fairstone has signed up advice company Mantle Financial Planning to its downstream buy out (DBO) programme.
This comes days after International Adviser spoke to several firms to discuss how the pandemic has changed the UK M&A financial advice market.
Mantle Financial Planning has two offices, one in Epsom, Surrey and another in Twickenham, and the firm specialises in pension planning and investment management.
The deal brings more than 1,750 clients, 11 advisers and 13 support staff to the wider business, as well as gross fee income of £3.3m ($4.1m, €3.7m) and funds under management of £480m.
Fairstone’s total funds under management is now close to £10bn and its funds under advice is almost £12bn.
M&A activity
This latest DBO deal is the seventh announced so far this year, and the firm has gained almost £1.2bn in funds under management through the scheme in 2020.
The programme continues to be a core driver of growth for the business, reversing the traditional buy and build approach, with consolidation playing a key role in a firm joining the programme.
The scheme integrates advice businesses into the group within a two-year period.
Lee Hartley, chief executive of Fairstone, said: “We are always looking for strong, high quality businesses with ambitious growth plans to join Fairstone and whilst we recognise that we are all moving into a different climate with challenges ahead, we are in a strong position and we will continue to onboard new DBO firms at our forecasted volume.”
Most recently, Fairstone brought pension and investment specialists MT Financial Management into the scheme.
