Tavistock Investments has confirmed the closure of Financial Ltd and Investments Ltd, the two trading subsidiaries it bought during the deal for Standard Financial Group in February.
A statement this morning (22 October) explained that having secured the cancellation of regulatory permissions from the Financial Conduct Authority, the final step in the integration process is to place all three entities into members voluntary solvent liquidation, with Moore Stephens acting as liquidator.
Since the original acquisition, Tavistock has conducted a risk appraisal of all members of Financial Ltd’s advisory network, transferring a “significant majority” of those members across to a newly established network, Tavistock Financial.
The group also disposed of Investment Ltd’s “sub-scale” investment management business and transferred all support staff and operations across to the new entity.
The combined effect of these developments has reduced the operating costs of the network by more than £1m a year, so that bosses said it now trades profitably.
Tavistock now has a national network of 270 self-employed financial advisers and has secured the opportunity to offer the services of its investment management business, Tavistock Wealth, to their underlying clients, whose assets are estimated to exceed £3bn.
Brian Raven, Tavistock’s chief executive, added that while the integration of these businesses into the Tavistock Investments Group has absorbed a considerable amount of management’s time over the last nine months, he is “very pleased with the outcome and anticipate that the restructured business will contribute significantly to the company’s future profitability”.
Last summer, Financial Ltd was handed a trading ban by the regulator for failures on control of appointed representatives, avoiding fines totalling more than £13m due to having insufficient funds.
Financial Ltd made a £120,481 loss for the financial year of 2014, up from a £28,193 loss for the previous year, with a statement in January confirming it was looking for outside investment.
Tavistock then bought parent company Standard Financial Group in February.
peter.walker@ft.com
