Several years after the retail distribution review came in and many advisers sold up and left the financial services industry, one might be forgiven for thinking the appetite for selling or acquiring a firm has abated.

Not so, if countless news stories of acquisitions are anything to go by. Large companies are buying advisory arms for distribution, small firms are making strategic partnerships and consolidators are still consolidating. 

So what are the drivers for merger and acquisition activity in the financial advice space? What sort of potential problems are rearing their heads and how can owners overcome these when buying or selling?

This guide covers some of the trends in the advisory marketplace and discusses ways to make the novation and data-gathering process better and easier for both buyer and seller. 

Contributors to this guide: Tom Hegarty, managing director of the New Model Business Academy and Aileen Lynch, head of technical at Compliance First, a trading style of SimplyBiz; Linda Whittle, senior associate at Fladgate LLP; John Joe McGinley, founder of Glassagh Consulting; Henry Blunt, managing director of Retiring IFA; Lawrence Cook, director of marketing and business development for Thesis Asset Management; Barry Neilson, business development director for Nucleus; Mark Rogers, co-founder of Clay Rogers and now Succession wealth planner; Mark Stokes, proposition and marketing director for Succession; Keith Richards, chief executive of the Personal Finance Society; Sanjay Shah, managing director, Succession Advisory Services; Matthew Meadows, corporate finance partner with Kingston Smith; James Dingwall, chief executive of Thistle Initiatives; the Financial Conduct Authority; Imas Corporate Finance.

simoney.kyriakou@ft.com