Ian Taylor is stepping down as chief executive of the Transact platform and its parent company Integrafin.
Mr Taylor co-founded Transact as one of the first UK adviser platforms in 1999, and ran the company right through to its floatation on the London Stock Exchange in February 2018, at a valuation of £650m.
Mr Taylor will step down both as chief executive of Integrafin, the parent company, and Transact, the operating company, but will continue as an executive director of the business.
Meanwhile Transact has announced that it is reducing its platform charges. The annual charges will fall by one basis point to 0.28 per cent for pots of up to £600,000, and 0.18 per cent for post larger than that.
Mr Taylor's role is being split into two, with Alex Scott, who is currently finance director and a main board director, taking over as chief executive of Integrafin, while Jonathan Gunby, currently chief development officer, will take over as chief executive of Transact.
Mr Scott’s role will be to manage relationships with the company’s shareholders and the stock market, while Mr Gumby will manage relationships with Transacts’s clients.
In a stock exchange announcement released this morning (December 18) Mr Taylor said: “Looking to the future, and after more than 20 years at the group, I have decided that, with the business in an extremely strong position and with superb senior management in place, now is the right time for me to step down from my roles as CEO of the holding and the operating companies.
"The business's success has always been to a large extent due to its strong and highly collaborative senior team and I am pleased that my successors will come from within that team.
"I have known Alex for twenty years and Jonathan for thirty and they will make excellent CEOs. I wish them both well. I will remain an executive director of IntegraFin and continue to be involved in its development and its key relationships.
"I am relinquishing the two CEO roles so that I can spend more time with the business.”
Mr Scott said: “Over the last ten years I have had the privilege of a front row seat as we have successfully evolved from a small private group to being established in the FTSE 250.
"I am now very much looking forward to taking up the challenge of leading the group in the next stage of its development. I have been working with Jonathan for the last eight years and I’m sure we will do a great job together in continuing to drive Transact forward.”
Integrafin shares have risen from £3.03 to £4.43 this year to date.
The announcement of Mr Taylor’s stepping down as chief executive was accompanied by Integrafin’s annual results for the year to the end of September 2019.
The results showed the company had net intflows of £3.5bn during the year, with positive market movements meaning overall funds under direction rose by 14 per cent to £37.8bn.
The company posted a profit of £40.1m, a 22 per cent increase on the previous year.
Mr Taylor said: “Given the political, economic and regulatory instability of the last twelve and more months, we are very pleased with a solid set of results this year.”
david.thorpe@ft.com
