Succession’s acquisition strategy is well on track to get the 50 best firms by 2017, its chief executive has said.
Simon Chamberlain, chief executive of the Succession Group, told FTAdviser editor Emma Ann Hughes the group should have achieved its targets by 2017.
He said: “We have bought 21 firms and they have benefited from about £30m in cash and £30m in equity, so £60m in total.
“We expect to make a further 10 acquisitions this year. Those firms know who they are, and they are in a landing pattern for the next 12 months.
“By the end of this year we would expect to have added to the capital base of the industry about £90m in cash and share capital.”
He added: “Our plans are well-publicised. We said we wanted to buy the best 50 firms to start with within our community, of which there are 80 following our consolidation process.
“We are on track to buy one firm a month into 2017 and if we continue in that vein, we will have bought 50 by 2017.”
Mr Chamberlain added he has always used a phrase “a trinity of value within financial planning”.
According to Mr Chamberlain, this is: “To control the advisory fee, through our national advisory business; to control the administration fee by owning our own platform; and to be in control of the actual assets itself through the fund management exercise.
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“For us, the DFM permissions are not so much a commercial strategy but a control strategy. This means we can mandate our chosen fund managers to manage the money on our clients’ behalf and make sure the managers deliver the service and the pricing we would expect them to do.”
When asked about his reaction to the outcome of the Financial Advice Market Review, Mr Chamberlain said he was “puzzled” by some of its recommendations and objectives.
He said: “I am also concerned about the ongoing debate around what is advice and what isn’t. For me, this is simple: there should not be any ‘unadvised’ space.
“I am suspicious of the motives of fund management companies who want to enter this ‘unadvised’ space. I think what they want is the funds without the responsibility.
“However I think all recommendations should be advised on and responsibility should be with the people giving this advice.”
Mr Chamberlain said: “It sounds like groups or organisations want to collect money from people without being responsible for the process involved in getting those funds and I think advisers should fight against this as much as possible.”
