Rose was chief executive of Marks and Spencer from 2004 to 2010 and remained chairman until 2011. Since then he has been a chairman of Ocado and a government adviser.
The company confirmed Rose made his first investment in Netwealth in the latest funding round, joining what the firm said was a “majority” of its largest shareholders in contributing to the equity raise of £11.5m.
Lord Spencer of Alresford, who founded brokerage firm TPIcap, invested £5m as part of the latest fundraising, having also invested £5m when the company raised £10m in 2019.
Other shareholders include Harvey McGrath, formerly chairman of Prudential, and Bruce Carnegie Brown, formerly chairman of Lloyds of London, and Gerard Lyons, former chief economist at Standard Chartered, who also acts as chief economic strategist at Netwealth.
The latest fundraising round brings the total raised by the company to £38m since launch in 2015.
The company’s chief executive Charlotte Ransom recently told FTAdviser the company was “on track” to achieving its goals and confirmed a further fundraising was imminent.
Ransom also provided a hint as to what some of the cash would be used for, saying the intention was for Netwealth to buy a small number of advice firms while acting as investment manager to some advice firms that wish to outsource.
The company states it had turnover of £731,000 over the twelve months to the end of March 2020, compared with £438,000 for the prior year. The company made a loss of £5.5m in the period under consideration.
The average client portfolio is £466,000, though the minimum level of assets required by the firm is £50,000.
Former Jupiter chief executive Edward Bonham-Carter became chairman of Netwealth in January.
david.thorpe@ft.com
