Tenet will pilot a programme of buying up the businesses of its retiring advisers.
The launch of the buyout scheme follows the company’s purchase of Furness Building Society’s financial advice arm for its wholly-owned appointed representative Aspire Financial Management.
Mr O’Brien, managing director of TenetConnect and TenetSelect, said there has been demand among Tenet’s advisers for a way to exit the market with ease.
He said: “We have supported exit planning to allow members to buy members but we have never been involved in buying a block of business for our own benefit.
“We are looking to do a pilot where we look at maybe five or six firms that are retiring and are looking to sell outside Tenet but may prefer to sell to us.
“If it works out we will look to expand it. The membership have been asking for it for some time and if we don’t do anything for them they will sell to someone else.”
Mr O’Brien said it could reassure clients to know their adviser’s business is being taken over by the company which previously stood behind the firm.
Addressing the recent rumours about Intrinsic buying Tenet, Mr O’Brien said he had “no doubt” the business would be sold at some point in the future.
He said: “Aviva has made a very strong statement that they don’t want to be in distribution and the people at the top don’t appear to have changed their minds on that.
“You would have to think that at some stage they are going to sell us but we are not causing them any angst.”
Since Aviva’s takeover of Friends Life the Norwich-based company has owned 47 per cent of Tenet while Standard Life and Aegon UK each own 23 per cent.
The remaining stake in the company is owned by a collection of individual shareholders including former executives.
Mr O’Brien added that Standard Life and Aegon UK appeared less interested in selling their stakes.
Tenet’s buyout scheme was announced on the same day that Succession revealed it had secured an investment package of more than £25m from HSBC and its existing shareholders, to allow it to speed up plans to buy the best 50 firms from its affiliated membership by the end of 2017.
In the last three years, Succession has purchased 25 firms to create a national advisory business.
It currently has 50 affiliated member firms, each of which is working towards being acquired, with the investment package helping the group to accelerate its rate of acquisitions.
