Advice conglomerate Succession Group will look to sell or initiate a public offering in the first quarter of 2018, once the firm has built up the number of adviser firms using the Succession platform.
Simon Chamberlain, chief executive of Succession Advisory Services, told FTAdviser he aims to double the number of adviser firms using the Succession platform by the end of 2017 from the current 55 to between 100 and 120.
Then, he says, by the end of the first quarter of 2018 management will look to “capitalise” the business, by which he means selling it or launching an initial public offering of shares for sale on a stock exchange.
Succession Group currently has 55 advice firms working out of 17 locations in the UK.
Mr Chamberlain said: “We will train the IFA firm how to use the platform, our back office system, charging structure, scripts for clients, cash flow modeling for clients. Once they are using our platform and they have adopted our methods, we buy them.
“By the end of 2017 we will have about 100 to 120 firms in the company who use the platform and of those we will have acquired about 60, which would give us a company which has £90m of turnover from the advisery firm and £21m from the platform a combined turnover of £111m and a profit margin of 30 per cent across the platform and advisory firms.”
Succession is a vertically-integrated firm which has retained its independent title post-Retail Distribution Review by continuing to advise on all products in the market.
Mr Chamberlain added: “We are vertically integrated in that the whole process is controlled by Succession. The clients sign an agreement that they see a Succession adviser. When the funds come onto the platform they go on the Succession platform.
“I don’t mind what fund manager they use on our platform because we get paid anyway.”
