Andrew Fisher, chief executive of adviser firm Towry, has hinted that the firm may consider buying retail wealth management business Bluefin Personal Consulting from Axa, telling FTAdviser the unit meets the standard his company looks for in prospective acquisitions.
While Mr Fisher refused to confirm a report in The Sunday Times that Towry, which he claimed earlier this year was seeking to boost adviser numbers by 50 per cent through a post-Retail Distribution Review spending spree, was in talks to buy Bluefin, he did say the firm was a suitable target due to its “great people”.
Mr Fisher told FTAdviser: “We are looking at buying loads of different things and we are in discussion with loads of different businesses, but I can’t comment on anything further at this point.
“Bluefin falls into that category because they have some great people.”
He added that further developments should become apparent “in the next few weeks or longer”.
A buyout by Towry would bring to an end a difficult seven-year ownership of the business by Axa, which in April 2012 sold Bluefin’s employee benefits business Bluefin Corporate Consulting to Capita in a £50m deal. Bluefin’s other operations, including Bluefin Insurance Group and Bluefin Personal Consulting were not part of the transaction.
FTAdviser had exclusively revealed almost a year earlier that Bluefin was planning to close its advisory service arm and had put staff at its Newcastle office on 30-day at-risk notice. At the time the firm said the move was part of a strategic review of the wealth management business.
In a statement the company had said: “As part of the continued plans to grow the Wealth Management offering within Bluefin Advisory Services, it has been decided to move the BWM Newcastle operation to the Corporate Consulting Offices in Harrogate.”
A source close to the situation suggested to FTAdviser that Axa had pulled its funding because it was “sick of not making any money”.
Axa later confirmed the Bluefin business had been formally put on the block in November 2011, after it appointed Fenchurch Advisory Partners to look at Bluefin Advisory Services and examine how the company could grow and how it would fare if sold. Axa said then it had no plans to bring the business in-house.
Axa Advisory Services originally acquired IFA network Thinc Group in 2006, later launching the Bluefin brand to house the business and a number of other acquired assets in 2009. The move saw it close the Thinc Networks and enter into a partnership with Sesame in an effort to unite its advisory services under a single brand.
In October 2011 Bluefin Advisory Services reported a loss before tax of £1.9m for the year ending 31 December 2010, a substantially smaller loss than the £64m posted the previous year which was largely the result of a £62m earn-out provision related to the original buyout of Thinc.
Bluefin Personal Consulting as a separate entity reported a loss of almost £1m for 2011 compared to a £270,000 profit in 2010, largely due to £600,000 that was paid out in redress for possibly unsuitable advice and despite £2.8m in contributions paid into the company by Axa.
The company also confirmed at the time it was in the throws of legal battle with two ex-advisers over £264,000 in disturbance fees or ‘joining bonuses’ which it was trying to claw back. However, in October 2012 Bluefin lost a High Court appeal against the advisers, a husband-and-wife team.
In early 2013 (21 February), Mr Fisher told FTAdviser sister publication Money Management that Towry was in acquisition talks with 85 firms which could result in boosting Towry’s client numbers by 50 per cent.
Neither Axa nor Bluefin were available for contact at the time of publication.
