Towry’s chief executive said that the firm - which announced last week that it had acquired Glasgow-based firm Norscot Financial Services, was in talks with a further 85 firms across the UK.
He said: “Our business has grown significantly over the last few years and we will achieve further growth in 2013 through acquisition and the recruitment of individual advisers. As a company, we retain our ambition and conviction of becoming the leading wealth advice firm in the UK.”
In September 2012, the wealth adviser had completed a refinancing package from Macquarie Bank and RBS totalling £47.3m. The proceeds of the debt issuance, comprising £42.5m in senior and junior loans from Macquarie and an extra £4.8m of senior debt provided by RBS, an existing lender, were used to repay an earlier mezzanine debt facility and fund its acquisition plans.
According to a statement from Towry, its earnings jumped from 19.6m in 2011 to £23.5m last year, while operating profits rose from £10.2m in 2011 to £11.8m in 2012.
Discretionary assets under management grew by 6.5 per cent to £4.8bn, while revenues for the 12 months to December totalled £83m, with the proportion of recurring income rising to 86 per cent.
Towry’s full-year accounts, including exceptionals, are to be published later this year.
The firm currently employs 650 people in 18 offices across the UK, including 179 appointed representatives.
| Background |
Mr Fisher came under fire last month from Matt Timmins, joint managing director of SimplyBiz, after he claimed that the regulator is not enforcing the RDR properly, many advisers were still salesmen, and claimed just 1500 advisers actually gave financial advice. Labelling Mr Fisher “uninformed”, Mr Timmins said advisers were “working hard to operate within the new rules” and did not need a “prominent industry spokesman sitting on the sidelines, making figures up for the point of being controversial”. |
